Johannesburg: Bulgarian tennis star Grigor Dimitrov has surged up to the career-high third spot in the latest rankings after clinching biggest title of his career at the ATP World Tour Finals in London.
After comfortably winning the first set, the sixth-seeded went down in the second before he rebounded strongly and held his nerve to beat David Goffin of Belgium 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, in a thrilling summit showdown clash of the ATP Finals that lasted two-and-a-half hours at London’s O2 Arena.
The victory saw him move up by three places to stand only behind Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Swiss star Roger Federer.
Germany’s Alexander Zverev has slipped by one spot to fourth, after he failed to reach beyond the round-robin stage in London, while Jack Sock of America moved up one place to the eighth spot following his semi-final finish in the season-ending tournament.
Meanwhile, Goffin has also climbed up to the seventh spot after making it to the finals of the ATP Finals. He will now lead Belgium’s bid for a first Davis Cup title this weekend against France in Lille.
Nadal continues to remain at the top of the rankings despite pulling out from the end-of-season finale with a knee injury after losing his first match of the Boris Becker Group.
Federer, on the other hand, is now trailing Nadal by 1, 040 points following his semi-final exit in London.
Nadal, who moved his Grand Slam haul to 16 after clinching this year’s French and US Open titles, had already secured the year-end world number one ranking for the fourth time – after achieving the feat in 2008, 2010 and 2013.
The current ATP top 10 are:
1. Rafael Nadal
2. Roger Federer
3. Grigor Dimitrov
4. Alexander Zverev
5. Dominic Thiem
6. Marin Cilic
7. David Goffin
8. Jack Sock
9. Stan Wawrinka
10. Pablo Carreno.
[“Source-timesnownews”]
