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The higher-ranked men, at least some of them, tend ot play these “gap” clay-court events between the grass-court season and the summer-hard court swing in North America.

So players like Ruud, Zverev and Rublev have all been in action.

If they don’t make their seeds, there are opportunities for other players to move up during these weeks, especially the players who prefer playing on clay and hustle over to Gstaad or Bastad as soon as they’re eliminated early from Wimbledon.

The best Canadian news is that Alexis Galarneau, who has had a slog from college, through the pandemic, through trying to rise the ranks, hits a big-time career high after winning his first Challenger in Granby, Quebec before friends, family and a stadium full of supporters.

WTA Rankings Report – As of July 24, 2023

(For the complete, updated ATP Tour rankings, click here).

ON THE UPSWING

Adrian Mannarino (FRA): No. 38 =======> No. 27 (The 35-year-old veteran wins Newport, thus moving up a dozen sports and back into the top 30 with his third career ATP title)

Nick Kyrgios (AUS): No. 37 =======> No. 35 (Despite being idle all year with the exception of one match on grass, Kyrgios moves up two spots. That could all fall pretty quickly, though, as he has a title to defend in Washington, D.C. in a week’s time, and there hasn’t been much tennis going on).

Pedro Cachin (ARG): No. 90 =======> No. 49 (From a spot just inside the top 100, the 28-year-old Argentine moves into the top 50 with a title in Gstaad. His first career title, his first leap into the top 50 and a career high).

Albert Ramos-Vinolas (ESP): No. 79 =======> No. 65 (At 35, Ramos-Viñolas continues to grind, and sometimes he has good weeks. This was one of them, as he made the Gstaad final).

Stan Wawrinka (SUI): No. 74 =======> No. 72 (Not much of a rise for Wawrinka, who lost in the second round of Gstaad. But he and young countryman Dominic Stricker won the doubles – Wawrinka’s first doubles title since 2013 (with Benoit Paire in Chennai), and his third overall. The first was the gold medal with compatriot Roger Federer at the 2008 Beijing Olympics).

Hugo Gaston (FRA): No. 120 =======> No. 92 (Gaston is back into the top 100 after winning the Trieste Challenger).

John Isner (USA): No. 126 =======> No. 103 (Isner, who hasn’t played a full schedule and hasn’t even won a match outside the U.S. this year, gets to the semifinals on grass in Newport and moves up near the top 100).

Alex Michelsen (USA): No. 190 =======> No. 140 (Michelson has had a great week in Newport, mowing down Isner, McDonald, Duckworth and Cressy and moving into the top 150, at age 18. He began the season No. 600 in the world).

Hamad Medjedovic (SRB): No. 183 =======> No. 146 (Medjedovic, just 19, had a great run in Gstaad and beat some very good players in making the semifinals. Coached by Viktor Troicki and supported by illustrious contemporary Novak Djokovic, he’s at a career high after that effort).

Dalibor Svrcina (CZE): No. 193 =======> No. 167 (The 20-year-old from the Czech Republic makes the Challenger final in Tampere, and hits a career high).

Sumit Nagal (IND): No. 231 =======> No. 178 (The 25-year-old, whose career high was No. 122 in Aug. 2020 – right after tennis started up again after the pandemic stoppage – has had his share of injury woes. But he gets a nice kick to his ranking by winning the Challenger in Tampere, Finland).

Alexis Galarneau (CAN): No. 220 =======> No. 162 (Galarneau wins the Granby Challenger – the first Challenger title of his career. And he thus guarantees he’s in the top 200 for the first time, and ensures there will be no worries about getting into the qualifying at the US Open for the first time. He’ll make it by plenty).

Leo Borg (SWE): No. 437 =======> No. 391 (With a wild card into Bastad, the 20-year-old son of Bjorn wins a round and jumps into the top 400, a career high).

Philip Sekulic (AUS): No. 477 =======> No. 340 (Already with points from his quarterfinal at the $25K in Laval a week ago coming on, and the Granby final, Sekulic is at a career high. It was a great two weeks in Québec).

Ethan Quinn (USA): No. 434 =======> No. 394 (The 19-year-old won a round in Newport to reach a career high, and finds himself with a wild card into the ATP tournament in Atlanta this week, where he’ll try to move up even more.

James Trotter (USA): No. 579 =======> No. 437 (The 23-year-old, who represents Japan, made the semifinal in Granby and adds on points from that and also from the 25K in Laval the previous week. Trotter just graduated from Ohio State, where he won the 2023 NCAA doubles crown and was named Ohio State (male) athlete of the year. Trotter also is the longtime boyfriend of Isabelle Boulais, who also played and graduated from Ohio State and is the daughter of longtime tennis coach and Quebecer Yves Boulais, and his former top-30 player wife Patricia Hy-Boulais. So he’s practically Canadian!)

Justin Boulais (CAN): No. 564 =======> No. 487 (The 21-year-old Canadian lefty, who has been playing college tennis at Ohio State, gets a wild card and reaches the quarterfinal in Granby to get to a career high. He’s the almost-brother-in-law of James Trotter, above).

Alec Deckers (NED): No. 596 =======> No. 523 (Another son – this one the son of former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek who uses his mother’s last name, Deckers – gets to the quarterfinals of the Amersfoort Challenger and, at 23, is at a career high).

Blaise Bicknell (JAM): No. 724 =======> No. 564 (Bicknell’s trip to Québec was stopped short in the first round in Granby. But he won the $25K in Laval the previous week, and rises more than 150 spots to a new career high. Bicknell has played for the University of Tennessee and the University of Florida).

James Tracy (USA): No. 801 =======> No. 676 (Tracy, a 21-year-old American, moves up more than 125 spots to a career high with his finals appearance in the $25K in Laval).

ON THE DOWNSWING

Lorenzo Musetti (ITA): No. 16 =======> No. 18 (Musetti won in Hamburg a year ago, but the semifinal points from last week in Bastad that replaced them weren’t quite enough to maintain his ranking, as Hamburg is a 500 tournament. Musetti will play qualifier Elias Ymer to start his title defence in Hamburg).

Matteo Berrettini (ITA): No. 32 =======> No. 37 (Berrettini loses the points from making the final in Gstaad a  year ago, as he wasn’t in action last week. He’s not playing this week, either).

Daniel Elahi Galan (COL): No. 56 =======> No. 67 (Elahi Galan lost in the first round of Gstaad, and drops the points from his second round in Hamburg a year ago. No. 56 had been his career high).

Aslan Karatsev (RUS): No. 52 =======> No. 69 (The Russian, idle last week, drops points from a quarterfinal in Hamburg a year ago.

Zhizhen Zhang (CHN): No. 70 =======> No. 79 (Zheng was a first-round loser in Gstaad, to a player ranked much lower. And he drops because of the points from making the final at the Trieste Challenger last year. He’s in that tricky place in his transition where he only has three non-Slam tournaments on his rankings list – everything else is Challengers, which will slowly drop off as he tries to make the same points at the ATP level).

Yibing Wu (CHN): No. 78 =======> No. 89 (Wu is in a similar position to Zhang. He was idle this week – well, not idle EXACTLY; he jetted off to Los Angeles to play in the exhibition “UTS Showdown”. But his points from winning a Challenger in Indianapolis last year fall off.

Dominic Thiem (AUT): No. 94 =======> No. 112 (As much sweat and tears as it took for Thiem to crawl back into the top 100 after his injury break, that’s how quickly it can go away. Ranked outside the top 200, Thiem had a decent run at the post-Wimbledon clay tournaments. He made the semis in Gstaad a year ago. But last week, he lost in the second round to Hamad Medjedovic. He’ll try again this week in Umag, as he defends a quarterfinals from Kitzbuhel in 2022. His first opponent is qualifier Facundo Bagnis and if he wins, he would meet No. 1 seed Jiri Lehecka).

Alex Molcan (SVK): No. 81 =======> No. 118 (A tough drop for Molcan, who was ranked a career-high No. 38 exactly a year ago, but who falls out of the top 100 as his points from a semifinal in Hamburg last year fall off. fall off. He got a tough draw in Hamburg: Alexander Zverev in the first round).

Filip Krajinovic (SRB): No. 187 =======> No. 245 (Krajinovic has been dealing with some injuries, even if he’s made cursory appearances at the majors – notably at Roland Garros, where he lost in a hurry to Frances Tiafoe. But he hasn’t played since; he was a very late withdrawal from Wimbledon. But he’s idle this week, and he drops his points from last year’s Hamburg event).

Tim van Rijthoven (NED): No. 395 =======> No. 422 (Remember a year ago, when Van Rijthoven was ranked outside the top 200 but ran the table and won the ‘s-Hertogenbosch title at home in Holland? He defeated Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime AND Daniil Medvedev en route to that title. Van Rijtohoven followed that up with a fourth-round effort at Wimbledon and got within a hair’s breadth of the top 100. But it’s been an uphill battle since then with his health. He played a few matches early in the season, including in Davis Cup, but nothing since Rotterdam in February. And as some points from a Challenger in Indianapolis last year fall off, he drops out of the top 400.

THE CANADIANS

THE RACE TO TURIN

THE NEXT-GEN RACE

ATP Rankings Report – As of July 17, 2023

 

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