ATP Rankings: Points being dropped by Sinner, Alcaraz, Zverev, Djokovic during grass-court season
The 2026 grass-court season is underway and the top players will once again have a lot of points to defend in the next few weeks, but Alexander Zverev is not one of them as he is in a good position.
The six-week campaign is the shortest on the tennis calendar and it comprises four ATP 250 events and two ATP 500 tournaments before the grass season comes to a conclusion at Wimbledon.
The Stuttgart Open and Libema Open are the first two events taking place this week with world No 5 Ben Shelton, No 9 Taylor Fritz and No 11 Alexander Bublik the three highest seeds in action in Germany.
No 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime, No 6 Alex de Minaur and No 8 Daniil Medvedev are playing in the Netherlands.
The ATP 500 events, the Queen’s Club Championships and Halle Open, will take place next week before the Wimbledon warm-up events conclude with the Mallorca Open and Eastbourne Open.
Of course, there will be a lot of points on the spell in the next few weeks with players having to defend points they earned from these events 12 months ago as the ATP uses a rolling 52-week cumulative system to determine the rankings.
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Example: If player A won an ATP 500 tournament last year, he will drop the 500 points he earned at the start of the 2026 edition and then have an opportunity to earn points for every round win.
Points The Big Names Will Drop
Jannik Sinner – 2,050 points
The world No 1 played only one Wimbledon warm-up event last year and that was in Halle where he was stunned by Bublik in the second round (50) before going on to win the grass-court Grand Slam, where he picked up 2,000 points.
Sinner has confirmed he won’t return to Halle this year with Wimbledon his only grass-court event.
Carlos Alcaraz – 1,800 points
The seven-time Grand Slam winner has been ruled out of his title defence at Queen’s Club where he earned 500 points last year while he will also drop 1,300 points at the All England Club after finishing runner-up to Sinner in 2025.
Alcaraz is in danger of losing second place in the ATP Rankings to Zverev.
Alexander Zverev – 210 – points
The newly-crowned French Open champion didn’t have the best of grass-court seasons last year as, after making a decent start with a run to the semi-final in Halle (200), he was then stunned by Arthur Rinderknech in the first round at Wimbledon.
With Alcaraz dropping 1,800 points, he finds himself in a good position to move ahead of the Spaniard.
Felix Auger-Aliassime – 200 points
The Canadian rose to a new high of No 4 in the rankings after reaching the quarter-final at Roland Garrros and last year he lost in the second round in Halle (50), the semi-final of the Mallorca Championship (15) and the first round at Wimbledon (50).
Auger-Aliassime is competing at the Libema Open and Halle before Wimbledon.
Ben Shelton – 500 points
The American was a semi-finalist in Stuttgart (100) and a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon (400) in 2025.
A deeper run at Wimbledon could see him move up to No 4 in the rankings if Auger-Aliassime struggles on grass this year.
Alex de Minaur – 200
De Minaur lost in the first round at Queen’s Club last year before his Wimbledon campaign was ended by Novak Djokovic in the fourth round.
Novak Djokovic – 800
As has become customary now with the tennis great, he only plays the big events and Wimbledon was the only grass-court event on his calendar in 2025 and he reached the semi-final before losing to eventual champion Sinner.
Djokovic will once again only play at Wimbledon this year.
Taylor Fritz – 1,050
The American was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon (800) before losing against Alcaraz and also won the Eastbourne Open in the lead-up to the grass-court major.
He currently sits at No 9 in the rankings and could slip out of the top 10 if he fails to have a deep run at Wimbledon.
Flavio Cobolli – 500
French Open runner-up and new world No 10 Cobolli was a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon 2025 (400) and also reached the last eight in Halle (100).
