The Serbian Novak Djokovic became this Monday the tennis player with the most weeks as number one in the world in the history of ranked tennis, both male and female, reaching 378 weeks and thus surpassing the record established by the German Steffi Graf, with 377 .
Djokovic, with his achievement at the head of the ATP world ranking, managed to leave behind the tie with Graf, according to the rankings released by the ATP and WTA, the entities in charge of processing the scores in professional tennis.
To achieve that mark, the 35-year-old Serbian added resounding victories in recent months, which he crowned with the first Grand Slam of the year, when he won the Australian Open last January after defeating Stéfanos Tsitsipas in the final.
In his extensive list of successes on the circuit, Djokovic equaled the Spanish Rafael Nadal last January with 22 Grand Slam individual titles after celebrating the tournament won in Melbourne -for the tenth time- and adding weeks at the top of world tennis more than any other. another male player in history.
In addition, “Nole” is one of the two tennis players who have won all four major singles at least twice, the only one who has won nine Masters 1000 and the only one who also finished the year as world number one for the seventh time.
His closest male rival in the historical ranking, which was introduced in 1973, is Swiss Roger Federer, now retired and who spent a total of 310 weeks as world number one. The podium, to this day, is closed by the American Pete Sampras (286).
Beyond the record, Djokovic is fighting inch by inch with the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz for the current number one. The Balkan, who returns to the circuit this week in the ATP 500 in Dubai, has a 200-point advantage over the Spaniard, who is listed in the ATP 500 in Acapulco, although it will be necessary to see if he can participate in the contest since he ended up touched in the Rio final that he lost on Sunday to Cameron Norris.
On the women’s circuit, Graf came to command the WTA ranking for 377 weeks, which began in 1975. The German tennis player was the number one female 45 weeks more than the second ranked, the Czech Martina Navratilova (332), with the American Serena Williams in third position (319).