Jack Draper’s Queen’s heroics hand Novak Djokovic a Wimbledon boost

If Novak Djokovic is fit to play at Wimbledon this season he will anchor the draw as the No 2 seed after Jack Draper’s win over Carlos Alcaraz ensured that the Serbian will return to the No 2 ranking when the ATP Rankings update on Monday.

Alcaraz was the defending champion at Queen’s having swept to the title at the popular ATP 500 event last season before his sensational Wimbledon win.

The loss of 450 rankings points will see Alcaraz tumble down to third but that is as far as he can fall for now with No 4 Alexander Zverev too far adrift to overtake the Spaniard.

With the seeding cut-off for Wimbledon coming next week, the rankings positions at the end of this week will determine how the draw’s skeleton is filled out.

Djokovic faces a race to be fit in time to compete but the news that he will anchor the draw as the No 2 seed should give the Serbian and his camp a lift.

The 24-time Grand Slam winner suffered a meniscus tear during the French Open and many believed he wouldn’t have much chance of being fit to play at Wimbledon.

Djokovic underwent surgery to repair the injury and will only compete at Wimbledon if his medical team does not deem the risk of hampering his recovery too great.

The Paris Olympics tennis competition follows just a couple of weeks after Wimbledon and could be Djokovic’s last chance to complete his collection of tennis’ most coveted prizes by winning a gold medal at last.

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Jannik Sinner is assured of being the top seed and can extend his lead at the top of the rankings if he continues his current run in Halle following his round of 16 win over Fabian Maroszan.

Zverev has now locked down the No 4 seeding after Daniil Medvedev suffered a stunning round of 16 loss to Zhizhen Zhang at Halle. The German world No 4 remains in the hunt for a first Halle title, having twice lost the championship match at the ATP 500 event in 2016 and 2017.

Medvedev will be in no danger of losing his No 5 ranking next week and if all the players ranked above him enter Wimbledon he will be the fifth seed. No 6 Andrey Rublev lost early in Halle but will also retain his position in the top ten.

Hubert Hurkacz can displace Casper Ruud claim the world No 7 ranking and incrementally improve his seeding to the year’s third Major if he can beat Marcos Giron in the last eight in Halle.

Ruud is not in action this week but will move up one place from his No 8 spot at the start of this week if Hurkacz loses in the quarter-finals.

Despite early exits this week Alex De Minaur and Stefanos Tsitsipas will round out the top ten. De Minaur drops two places following his first-round loss at Queen’s while Tsitsipas moves up one place after a Round of 16 exit in Halle.