Once again the showdown of the men’s tennis tour season will be celebrated in Turin.
After Novak Djokovic’s cancellation, for the first time since 2001, none of the “Big Three” will be taking part in the $15.25 million ATP Finals from November 10th to 17th.
So the new generation is completely vying for the title. The top favorite is last year’s finalist Jannik Sinner. The Italian could pocket no less than $4.88 million as the undefeated champion.
The draw on Thursday afternoon gave Sinner the Russian Daniil Medvedev (No. 4), Taylor Fritz (USA-5) and finals debutant Alex de Minaur (AUS-7) in the group “Ilie Nastase”.
Zverev is probably the biggest board for Sinner
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He will therefore have to play against number 3 seeded Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals at the earliest. Alcaraz plays in group “John Newcombe” against Alexander Zverev (GER-2), Casper Ruud (NOR-6) and Andrej Rublev (RUS-8).
Last year, Djokovic traveled to Italy as the big favorite – and as defending champion he won his seventh “Masters” title, overtaking record man Roger Federer (6). In the final he stopped Sinner on his ATP Finals debut.
Sinner’s biggest challenger this year is probably the newly crowned Paris-Bercy winner Zverev. The German, who also hopes to hold on to second place in the ATP ahead of Alcaraz in Italy’s fourth-largest city, is also the most experienced player in the tournament, which is initially being held in round-robin mode, and is competing for the seventh time. The top two teams in each group advance to the semi-finals.
The 27-year-old from Hamburg could win the title for the third time after 2018 and 2021. With the Paris title he has secured his seeding as number two, which means he can only meet Sinner in the semi-finals at the earliest.
Place in the sun already fixed before the season returns
With Daniil Medvedev there is another former winner in the field; the 28-year-old Russian celebrated a narrow final victory in 2020 over the now retired Dominic Thiem.
Alcaraz wants to top his semi-final from last year at his third ATP Finals. The Spaniard triumphed in Beijing, but recently disappointed – as he did last year – at the 1000 tournaments in Shanghai and Paris.
New winning faces would also be Fritz (2nd time/best result: semifinal 2022), Ruud (3rd/final 2022), Rublev (5th/semifinal 2022) and the Australian debutant de Minaur.
An important decision was already made before the end of the season: Sinner ended the year as number 1, which guaranteed him further hefty payments from the bonus pool. The South Tyrolean is a big winner, having recently collected no less than 7.5 million dollars at the Six Kings Slam.
The big absentee this time is Djokovic, who said a persistent injury was the reason for his cancellation. It is therefore clear that the 37-year-old will complete a year without an ATP title for the first time since his first tournament victory in 2006.
What stood out about “Djoker” this year was, of course, the Olympic gold in Paris that was still missing, as well as the Wimbledon final and the one in Shanghai.
These players made the jump to ATP number 1
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