Novak Djokovic tops the men’s tennis rankings for a 100th week in his career, the ninth man to reach the milestone on the latest list issued on Monday by the ATP.
The Serb Djokovic has 11,120 points for a slim advantage over French and US Open champion Rafael Nadal of Spain (10,860) and Briton Andy Murray (7,075).
Andre Agassi (101 weeks), Rafael Nadal (102), BjBorg (109), John McEnroe (170), Jimmy Connors (268), Ivan Lendl (270), Pete Sampras (286) and Roger Federer (302) are the other players to spend 100 and more weeks atop the rankings.
“I was taught to dream big and to dream to be number one in the world,” said Djokovic, who reached the top for the first time in July 2011.
“It takes years of hard work and dedication. It is a long process to become a champion. Tennis is a very specific and unique sport, where you take all the credit or all the blame.” However, he is expected not to top the year-ending rankings because Nadal has returned strong from injury this year and has no points to defend for the remainder of 2013 in the rankings which take into account results over the past 52 weeks.
ATP top 10 as of September 23 (previous ranking in parenthesis): 1. (1) Novak Djokovic, Serbia, 11,120 points 2. (2) Rafael Nadal, Spain, 10,860 3. (3) Andy Murray, Britain, 7,075 4. (4) David Ferrer, Spain, 6,710 5. (5) Roger Federer, Switzerland, 4,515 6. (6) Tomas Berdych, Czech Republic, 4,460 7. (7) Juan Martin del Potro, Argentina, 4,425 8. (8) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, France, 3,325 9. (9) Richard Gasquet, France, 3,165 10. (10) Stanislas Wawrinka, Switzerland, 3150.