SHANGHAI (AFP) -- Men's tennis will have a new world No. 1 after Germany's Alexander Zverev secured the year-end top ranking Monday following Carlos Alcaraz's third-round loss in Shanghai.
The career milestone will cap a stellar season for the 29-year-old, the current world No. 2, after he won the French Open in June and the US Open in September.
The French Open was his first Grand Slam title.
"It's been a fantastic season for me winning in Paris and New York and knowing that I will finish the year on top of the rankings is just a dream come true," Zverev said in a statement shared by the ATP Tour website.
"So much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury," Zverev added.
He suffered a career-threatening ankle injury in his French Open semifinal in 2022.
Zverev will be the first German man to finish a season ranked No. 1 in the world and, at 29, the oldest player to achieve the year-end No. 1 ranking for the first time.
Germany's Angelique Kerber and Steffi Graf have both finished the year as the world's top-ranked women's player.
Zverev's achievement comes in a year in which the previous two players to hold the top ranking, Italy's Jannik Sinner and Spain's Alcaraz, missed months of competition because of injury.
Sinner, the current No. 1, has not competed since Wimbledon, where he beat Zverev in the final. He announced last week that his season was over because of a knee injury.
Alcaraz, ranked third, was sidelined for months with a wrist injury from April until the US Open.
The 1.98-meter Zverev had been destined for the top from a young age, coming from a tennis family in which both his mother and father played the sport at a high level in the former Soviet Union.
But he plays in the shadow of domestic violence allegations made by two former partners, which he has strenuously denied.
The ATP Tour investigated one claim and found insufficient evidence to punish Zverev.
Another led to a 2023 penalty order and fine from a German court. The case was later dropped after a settlement was reached in June 2024, hours before he was due to play in the French Open semifinals.