Serbia's Novak Djokovic has won the title of Rafael Nadal's world number one on Monday, despite losing Sunday's final of the Paris Masters to Russia's Karen Khatanov, who is on top of the top ten after winning the most important title in his career.
This is the first time that the Serbian star has taken the lead in the rankings since November 2016, while Nadal fell to second place and Roger Federer, who lost to Djokovic in the semi-final of Paris, remained third.
Jokovic has scored 22 consecutive wins since August, including the US Open, the US Cincinnati and Shanghai Chinese in the 1,000-point Masters, before falling to the Paris final on Sunday.
The 31-year-old Serb has been in the lead since last week because of Nadal's withdrawal from the Paris tournament due to injury before playing his first game.
Jokovic took the lead for the last time in the 31 October 2016 professional league rankings and made impressive progress in the past months after finishing 22nd in June.
The progress came after Jukovic suffered months of injury and underwent a minor operation at the start of the year, before progressively improving his performance and winning two major titles in recent months (Wimbledon in July and Flushing Meadows in September).
"Five years ago, it was very unlikely because of my classification and the way I played," he said, .
The most notable progress in the rankings was the 22-year-old Katshanov, who is in 11th place, 320 points from the 10th American John Esner.
The Russian was in 18th place at the beginning of last week, starting this year in the 45th place, before impressing with three trophies - Marseille, France and Moscow, and the Paris Masters.
He has hit hard in Paris and the top four of the top 10 players in the world. In addition to defeating Djokovic, Austria's Dominique Teim (eighth in the world), German Alexander Zverev (fifth) in the quarterfinals, and Isner in the semi-finals passed the semi-final.
