Roger Federer begins fourth stretch as World No.1

London, Feb 20: 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer has come back to the top of the ATP Rankings for his fourth stretch at the pinnacle of men's professional tennis, over 14 years after he initially wound up number one.

Federer, who outperformed eight-time Grand Slam champ Andre Agassi's record to end up the most established ever No 1 in transit to winning the Rotterdam Open title last week, dethroned his great rival Rafael Nadal of Spain at the top of the rankings, as per the ATP.

Federer had before promised himself the No.1 spot by achieving the semi-finals of the Rotterdam Open. He, in any case, later went ahead to ease past Bulgarian player Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-2 to secure his 97th title in Netherlands.

The Swiss star first became world number one in February 2004 and had not topped the rankings since October 2012. He, in fact, slipped to a low of seventeenth in January 2017.

In the mean time, Bulgarian Dimitrov's run to the final also saw him move one place to the fourth spot above Germany's Alexander Zverev.

South Africa's Kevin Anderson, on the other hand, broke into the best 10 for the first time by lifting the title at the New York Open.