A weeklong look at the year-end standings closed with a clear conclusion: two players set the tempo for the 2025 men’s season. Carlos Alcaraz ended the year as ATP No. 1 with 12,050 points and Jannik Sinner finished No. 2 with 11,500. The distance from No. 2 to No. 3 was 6,340 points, a gap large enough that it “could be ranked No. 3 itself,” as Alexander Zverev sat at No. 3 with 5,160 points.

Alcaraz added his fifth and sixth Grand Slam titles this year at Roland Garros and the US Open, and his 12,050 points mark the first season of 12,000 or more since Novak Djokovic in 2020 (12,030). It is also the highest single-season total since Andy Murray’s 12,410 in 2016. Notably, 88 percent of Alcaraz’s points (10,640) were earned between April and November, leaving just 1,410 points, or 12 percent, to defend in the opening months of the next season.

Sinner’s consistency stood out as well. After 11,830 points last year and 11,500 this year, he is the first man to finish consecutive seasons with 11,000 or more points since Djokovic in 2020 (12,030) and 2021 (11,540). Together, Alcaraz and Sinner largely dominated the biggest events: between them they won eight of the nine largest ATP point hauls of the season and 13 of the 19 events that awarded 1,000 points or more.

As a pair they are the first two men to both finish a single season with at least 11,000 points, or even 10,000, since 2016 when Murray had 12,410 and Djokovic had 11,780. One final note: Alcaraz, Sinner and Zverev finished 2025 as the year-end Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and finished 2024 as Nos. 3, 1 and 2, respectively, making them just the second trio this century to occupy the year-end top three in back-to-back years together in any order. The other trio achieved that feat seven times.

A five-day review of year-end rankings highlighted several storylines from the ATP and WTA; the final entry focuses on a rare one-two hold at the top of the men’s game. Carlos Alcaraz closed 2025 as the ATP No. 1 with 12,050 ranking points and Jannik Sinner finished No. 2 with 11,500. The separation from there to No. 3 was 6,340 points, with Alexander Zverev at No. 3 on 5,160.

Alcaraz’s season included his fifth and sixth Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros and the US Open. His 12,050 points mark the first time a man has finished a season with 12,000 or more since Novak Djokovic in 2020 (12,030) and is the largest single-season total since Andy Murray’s 12,410 in 2016. Remarkably, 88 percent of Alcaraz’s total (10,640 points) was earned between April and November, leaving only 1,410 points, or 12 percent, to defend in the opening months of next year.

Sinner’s year also continued an elite run. After 11,830 points last year and 11,500 this year, he is the first man to finish back-to-back seasons with 11,000 or more points since Djokovic’s 12,030 and 11,540 in 2020 and 2021. Together, Alcaraz and Sinner won eight of the nine biggest ATP ranking point events of the season and 13 of the 19 events that awarded 1,000 points or more.

As a pair they are the first two men to both finish a single season with 11,000 or more points, or even 10,000 or more, since 2016 when Murray had 12,410 and Djokovic had 11,780. One final note: Alcaraz, Sinner and Zverev finished 2025 as the year-end Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and finished 2024 as Nos. 3, 1 and 2 in that order, making them just the second trio this century to occupy the year-end top three in back-to-back years together in any order. The other trio achieved that feat seven times.

Lorenzo Musetti’s No. 8 finish for 2025 guaranteed that a one-handed backhand will appear in every ATP year-end Top 10 since the rankings began on August 23, 1973. After several stretches without a one-hander in the elite, Musetti’s rise restored a long-running statistical thread.

This week we are featuring five storylines drawn from the ATP and WTA year-end rankings for 2025. Earlier items in the series noted that four American women finished inside the Top 10 for the first time since 2004, and that Novak Djokovic, at 38, became the oldest player to finish a year inside the Top 4 in ATP rankings history.

Musetti produced a breakthrough season on clay, reaching his first Masters 1000 final in Monte Carlo and his second Grand Slam semifinal at Roland Garros. He made his Top 10 debut on May 5 and remained there through the end of the year, closing 2025 at No. 8.

The presence of a one-handed backhand in yearly lists has been fragile in recent seasons. In 2024 there were six weeks with no one-handers in the Top 10, from February 19 to April 1, a stretch that broke more than five decades of continuity. Grigor Dimitrov returned to the Top 10 later in 2024 and finished that year at No. 10. In 2025 there were eight weeks without a one-hander in the Top 10—five weeks between January and March, and another three between April and May—until Musetti’s May arrival.

Musetti is not only the lone one-hander in the Top 10; he is the only one in the year-end Top 20. Denis Shapovalov is the next-highest one-handed player at No. 23. This marks the fifth consecutive year a single one-handed backhand has occupied the year-end Top 10, a pattern previously seen only once before, in 2009.

On the women’s tour, no player with a one-handed backhand has been in the Top 10 since 2016, when Roberta Vinci and Carla Suarez Navarro both appeared in the elite during that season. The last woman to finish a year in the Top 10 with a one-handed backhand was Francesca Schiavone in 2010, the year she won Roland Garros.