Nadal has struggled with injuries and played only 10 tournaments. He suffered a stress fracture in his ribs at Indian Wells in March. Then an abdominal injury forced him to pull out of the Wimbledon semifinals and affected him the whole summer.
“It’s obvious that when I was No. 1 for the first time in my career in 2008, I really wanted to be there,” Nadal said, “because I felt that 2005, ’06, ’07, including ’08, I was doing amazing results, winning a lot of tournaments, having a lot of points on the ranking system.
“Today is a different story for me. I don’t know how many events I played, like 10, and I finished eight. Difficult to be No. 1 like this. But happy to be in that position that says when I was playing, I was playing well.”
Alcaraz became the youngest men’s No. 1 in the 50-year history of the ATP rankings in September when he won his first major crown at the U.S. Open.
“It was my dream to win a Grand Slam, to become No. 1 of the world, but I didn’t expect to do that at 19 years old,” Alcaraz said. “Everything came so fast, faster than I could imagine.”