Jack Draper rises to new career-high ranking of No. 6, joins Rafael Nadal in exclusive club

Jack Draper didn't play any tournaments last week, but he rises from No. 7 to No. 6 on the new ATP rankings today after Casper Ruud—who didn't play last week either—drops points from reaching the semifinals in Estoril during the same week last year, and dips from No. 6 to No. 7.

It’s a new career-high ranking for Draper, and with that, he joins a very exclusive list: he’s just the second left-handed player this century to reach the Top 6 on the ATP rankings, after Rafael Nadal.

Seems hard to believe, right?

Well, there have been plenty of left-handed players in the ATP Top 10 since the start of 2000—eight of them in total, including Nadal and Draper—but none of the others made it higher than No. 7.

Nadal, of course, spent 209 career weeks at No. 1.

LEFT-HANDED PLAYERS IN THE ATP TOP 10 THIS CENTURY:

• Marcelo Rios [ranked as high as No. 7 in 2000]
• Mariano Puerta [career-high No. 9 in 2005]
• Rafael Nadal [career-high No. 1 in 2008]
• Fernando Verdasco [career-high No. 7 in 2009]
• Jurgen Melzer [career-high No. 8 in 2011]
• Denis Shapovalov [career-high No. 10 in 2020]
• Cameron Norrie [career-high No. 8 in 2022]
• Jack Draper [career-high No. 6 in 2025]

The last time a left-handed player other than Nadal or Draper was in the Top 6 of the ATP rankings was the week of November 1st, 1999, when another Brit—Greg Rusedski—spent his last week at No. 6.

To add to the stat's uniqueness, Draper isn’t even a lefty in real life, as he described after his semifinal win over Carlos Alcaraz at Indian Wells.

“I think, weirdly enough, my leftiness is a big plus, but I think the fact that I’m actually a right-hander, I think that really helps me, because my forehand has been improving all the time,” he said. “My forehand is naturally the shot where, you know, I’m not as comfortable. It’s always been my backhand that has been the shot, like, I can hit with my eyes closed, you know. I really have no problem against any player with their forehand into my backhand. Usually that’s something where players struggle. But with me, that’s a big strength of mine.

“I think the mix of that is a big advantage.”

The 23-year-old is the No. 5 seed in Monte Carlo this week, with a bye into the second round. He has nothing to defend at the first Masters 1000 clay-court event of the year, having fallen in the first round a year ago.

There are also a lot of notable ranking moves for Americans this week, starting with former No. 33 Jenson Brooksby, who soars from No. 507 to No. 172 after capturing the first ATP title of his career in Houston, where he came back from match point down in three matches en route to the final.

On the WTA rankings, Jessica Pegula rises from No. 4 back to her career-high of No. 3—switching spots with Coco Gauff—after winning the first clay-court title of her career on the green clay of Charleston.

Meanwhile, up-and-coming American lefty Robin Montgomery makes her Top 100 debut, rising from No. 105 to No. 100 after a second-round showing in Charleston, where she fell to Danielle Collins.

And last but certainly not least, probably the biggest surprise of the week: 16-year-old Californian Julieta Pareja soars more than 200 spots from No. 550 to No. 335 after a breakthrough run in Bogota, Colombia, where she made it all the way to the semifinals in her first WTA main draw.

She had been a wild card into qualifying, too.

Pareja was the youngest player to reach a WTA semifinal since Coco Gauff won the first WTA title of her career as a 15-year-old in Linz in 2019.