Iran’s Mahjoub claims silver in Antalya GP
Despite playing only one ATP tournament so far in 2018, Rafael Nadal is the world number 1 again before the start of the clay season in Monte Carlo next week, and he had a very successful Davis Cup weekend in Valencia. medals at Tunis Grand Prix in January and Tbilisi Grand Prix in late March to add to his gold medal at the Prague European Open earlier in March.
Earlier in the competitions, Mahjoub’s compatriot, Mohammad Mohammadi had won a bronze medal in the men’s -73kg contests.
Some 319 judokas, representing 50 countries, took part in the competitions in Antalya on April 6-8.
The ninth round of the 2018 Grand Prix competitions will take place in the Chinese city of Hohhot on May 25-27. Nadal helped his country to notch the 27th consecutive Davis Cup tie win at home, prevailing against Germany 3-2 with Nadal's wins against Philipp Kohlschreiber and Alexander
Zverev, and these two triumphs helped Rafa to achieve a new milestone in his already illustrious career, tennisworldusa.org reported.
Before these encounters, Nadal was tied with John Mcenroe on 877 ATP wins and he now moves ahead of the American to stand alone in the fifth place on this list, 49 triumphs behind Guillermo Vilas who grabbed 928 ATP wins in his long career that lasted almost 24 years.
Nadal had to retire in the quarterfinal of the Australian Open against Marin Cilic and he had not played since then, standing on six ATP wins so far in 2018 and looking to improve that number over the course of the next two months in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros.
If he stays healthy, Nadal could reach Vilas by the end of the season (since 2005, Nadal has won at least 59 matches on the Tour in every year except 2012, 2014 and 2016 when he had to deal with injuries) or certainly in the first part of 2019 but he will have to work hard after that to catch the remaining three players on the list who scored more than 1000 ATP wins.
Ivan Lendl is the third on the list with 1068 triumphs and the Spaniard will have to play on a high level for a few more years in order to catch the great Czech.
Roger Federer and Jimmy Connors are further away on the list and it is unlikely that anyone will catch them, especially if Nadal and Djokovic fail to do that.
The list of players with most ATP wins in the Open era:
1. Jimmy Connors: 1256 wins 2. Roger Federer: 1149 wins 3. Ivan Lendl: 1068 wins 4. Guillermo Vilas: 928 wins 5. Rafael Nadal: 879 wins 6. John Mcenroe: 877 wins 9. Andre Agassi: 870 wins 10. Stefan Edberg: 801 wins 11. Novak Djokovic: 786 wins