Djokovic Drops Out of ATP Top 10 for First Time Since 2018
Novak Djokovic fell to 11th on the ATP rankings with 2,980 points after losing in the first round of the US Open, outside the top 10 for the first time since July 2018.
On the ATP rankings board, where names and points get reshuffled every Monday, a number now sits next to Novak Djokovic that hasn’t been there since 2018: eleven. The last time he fell outside the top ten was in July of that year, when he was ranked 21st, eight years ago. The change came after a first-round loss to Marijan Navone at the US Open, a defeat that ended Djokovic’s tournament in New York almost before it began.
The exit itself takes only a sentence to describe, because the story today isn’t about how the match unfolded but about what it means for the rankings. Djokovic arrived in New York as the world’s fifth-ranked player, carrying 800 points he had to defend after last year’s run to the semifinals. Losing them in the first round meant the drop was never going to be small.
Under the current projection, Djokovic now holds 2,980 points and sits in 11th place. The gap between 10th and 11th on the ATP list isn’t just a number for statisticians. It changes how tournaments build their draws. A seeded player inside the top ten typically avoids other seeds in the early rounds, while a player just below that line loses that protection and can run into a top seed as early as the second or third round instead of waiting until the quarterfinals.
Who could still push Djokovic further down?
Behind the Serb, a group of players now has a chance to push him even lower this week. The closest is Rafael Hodar with 2,659 points, 321 behind Djokovic. Right after him comes American Frensis Tijafo with 2,590, followed by Lirner Tijen with 2,565 and Brendon Nakasima with 2,445. Jakub Mensik and Aleksander Bublik trail by a wider margin, but even they aren’t out of the running if they produce the kind of results once expected from Djokovic himself in New York.
What Djokovic lacks this time is any way to improve his own position. His tournament is over, so he can’t earn another point before the US Open ends. Every further win by Hodar, Tijafo, Tijen or Nakasima now pushes him further from 10th place, even though he isn’t playing another point himself. If any of the four reaches the quarterfinals or beyond, 11th place can easily turn into 12th or 13th.
For a player who spent a record 428 weeks at number one in his career, dropping out of the top ten is not just a line in a stats table. It changes his status at every draw ahead, from the fall Masters events through preparations for the Australian Open. Ahead of this US Open, Djokovic spoke to our outlet about the longevity of his career and said he took pride in how long he had managed to stay at the very top of tennis. The number eleven next to his name is now the clearest sign that this longevity has entered a phase where a place in the rankings is no longer a given, but something defended week after week, tournament by tournament.
The current drop shouldn’t be read as a closed story, though. After the US Open, Djokovic again gets the chance to add points, while the players chasing him are now the ones with something to lose if they don’t back up their earlier form. The official ATP rankings, which will replace the current projection, come out on Monday, September 7, once the last round in New York wraps up. Only then will it be clear whether Djokovic stays at 11th or one of the players behind him manages to pass him after all.
