Simon, Almagro jump up in rankings

LONDON, July 25 (UPI) -- German Tennis Championships finalists Gilles Simon and Nicolas Almagro made strong gains in the world men's tennis rankings Monday.

Simon collected his second ATP title of the year -- and ninth of his career -- with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over Almagro Sunday in Hamburg. That boosted him seven spots in the rankings to No. 11. He began at the year ranked No. 44.

Almagro re-entered the Top 10 with his runner-up finish, moving from 14th to 10th.

The rankings improvements by Almagro and Simon were costly to Andy Roddick, who fell from 10th to 12th.

Last week's other champion, Mardy Fish, who repeated as the titlist at the Atlanta Tennis Championships, remains ninth in the rankings.

Novak Djokovic, whose next action is the Rogers Cup in Montreal in two weeks, is ranked No. 1 in the world with 13,155 points. Rafael Nadal (11,270) is second with Roger Federer (9,530), Andy Murray (6,855) and Robin Soderling (4,325) comprising the Top Five.

David Ferrer is sixth at 4,210 points but the rest of the players in the top of the rankings are bunched closely together. No. 7 Gael Monfils has 2,695 points while eighth-ranked Tomas Berdych comes in with 2,470, Fish with 2,435 and Almagro at 2,165. Simon is 10 rankings points behind Almagro and Roddick has 2,110 points.