By
SABC Sport
3rd March 2025
The Greek beat Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-3 in the final of the Dubai Duty Free Championships and will now move up to No 9 in the latest rankings.
The 26-year-old achieved a career-high ranking of No 3 back in 2021, but he has not been at his best since his win in the Monte-Carlo Masters last April.
Alexander Zverev once again missed out on an opportunity to chip away at world No 1 Jannik Sinner's lead while Ben Shelton and Tomas Machac reached new career highs.
With Sinner now three weeks into his three-month ban, his closest rivals Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz had a chance to reduce the gap a fortnight ago but both slipped up as they lost in the quarter-finals of the Rio Open and Qatar Open, respectively.
Zverev was again in ATP Tour action last week as he competed at the Mexican Open but he lost in the second round.
Up next is the Indian Wells Open and Zverev will get another opportunity to reduce the lead to Sinner as he will drop only 200 points while the best Alcaraz can do is to maintain his 7,510 points as he is defending 1,000 points after winning the title last year.
The top seven remains unchanged with Sinner, Zverev and Alcaraz followed by Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud and Daniil Medvedev while Andrey Rublev is up one place as a result of Alex de Minaur slipping two spots to No 10 after he failed to defend his title in Acapulco.
Ben Shelton is just outside the top 10 at No 12 as he climbed two places to a new high despite losing early in Mexico while Felix Auger-Aliassime, who lost in the Dubai final, is back in the top 20 as he jumped three spots to No 18 â- still some way off his best of sixth.
Machac succeeded De Minaur as the Mexican Open champion as the Czech claimed his maiden ATP Tour singles trophy, beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the final.