\n
PARIS, 1 Nov: Rafael Nadal is a different man. He\u2019s losing sleep over his newborn baby and not so much the No. 1 ranking.
\nEven with all of his absences, Nadal has a shot at finishing the season as the world No. 1. He has racked up 5,820 points, trailing only the top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz, who has 6,650. But Nadal made clear on Tuesday what his priorities were when he was peppered with questions about fighting for the year-end No. 1 spot.
\nThere will be no fight.
\nNadal has achieved the coveted year-end No. 1 ranking five times, tied with Roger Federer, and trailing only Novak Djokovic (7) and Pete Sampras (6).
\n\u201cI don\u2019t fight to be No. 1,\u201d Nadal said at a Paris Masters news conference. \u201cSomething that I said since long time ago: I will not fight anymore to be No. 1. I did in the past. I achieved that goal a couple of times in my career that I have been very, very happy and proud about. But I am in a moment of my tennis career that I don\u2019t fight to be No. 1.\u201d
\nFor now, he wants to be a No. 1 dad.
\nHe\u2019s come to Paris for his first tournament since his wife Maria Francisca Perello gave birth to their first child \u2014 a boy \u2014 in early October. Nadal admitted he\u2019s approaching things differently now that he\u2019s a father.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s quite interesting how, even after (knowing him only) two or three weeks, leave your son at home and not be able to see him . . . you start missing him,\u201d Nadal said. \u201cWe are lucky today that, with the technology, everything, we can do video calls any time that you want.\u201d
\nNadal received a first-round bye and will face Tommy Paul or Roberto Bautista Agut in the second round on Wednesday. He hasn\u2019t played competitively since September when he partnered with Federer in doubles at the Laver Cup to celebrate the last match of the retiring Swiss great.
\nNadal won the Australian Open and French Open this year to achieve a record 22 Grand Slam singles titles, one more than Djokovic and two more than Federer. But the vibe on tour is a changing of the guard, with 36-year-old Nadal passing the baton to 19-year-old Alcaraz, at least in their Spain homeland.
\nNadal has struggled with injuries and played only 10 tournaments. He suffered a stress fracture in his ribs at Indian Wells in March. Then an abdominal injury forced him to pull out of the Wimbledon semifinals and affected him the whole summer.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s obvious that when I was No. 1 for the first time in my career in 2008, I really wanted to be there,\u201d Nadal said, \u201cbecause I felt that 2005, \u201906, \u201907, including \u201908, I was doing amazing results, winning a lot of tournaments, having a lot of points on the ranking system.
\n\u201cToday is a different story for me. I don\u2019t know how many events I played, like 10, and I finished eight. Difficult to be No. 1 like this. But happy to be in that position that says when I was playing, I was playing well.\u201d
\nAlcaraz became the youngest men\u2019s No. 1 in the 50-year history of the ATP rankings in September when he won his first major crown at the U.S. Open.
\n\u201cIt was my dream to win a Grand Slam, to become No. 1 of the world, but I didn\u2019t expect to do that at 19 years old,\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cEverything came so fast, faster than I could imagine.\u201d
\nThe year-end No. 1 won\u2019t be decided until the ATP Finals starting on Nov. 13 in Turin. Alcaraz could clinch it for the first time during his Finals debut. He could be the first player to achieve that outside the Big Four of Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Andy Murray since Andy Roddick in 2003.
\nNo. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas and No. 4 Casper Ruud have an outside chance at No. 1 as 1,000 points go to the Paris Masters winner and 1,500 points for a perfect run at the ATP Finals. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS, 1 Nov: Rafael Nadal is a different man. He\u2019s losing sleep over his newborn baby and not so much the No. 1 ranking. Even with all of his absences, Nadal has a shot at finishing the season as the world No. 1. He has racked up 5,820 points, trailing only the top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}