As the season approaches its end, attention switches to the ATP Finals which will be held in the Italian city of Turin for the first time in history.
Besides the prospect of winning one of the sport’s most prestigious titles outside of the Grand Slams, there is also an eye-watering prize money pool. This year’s winner is guaranteed to take home $1.094M but their earnings will rocket to $2.316M if they go undefeated. The eight-day tournament is split into two stages. First players are split into two groups of four and will play three round-robin matches. The top two of each group will then progress to the knockout stages.
20-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic heads the Green Group. He has been drawn to play Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev. Meanwhile, US Open champion Daniil Medvedev is in the Green Group along with Alexander Zverev, Matteo Berrettini and Hubert Hurkacz.
On the eve of the tournament getting underway, UbiTennis looks at the how the player’s in this year’s draw fair against each other.
The head-to-head
Out of the eight participants, Djokovic is the only player to have either a positive or neutral record against everybody else in this year’s draw. Overall, the world No.1 boasts a win-loss record of 27-9 against the six players he has previously faced on the Tour. Djokovic is yet to play Andrey Rublev who has been drawn in the same group as him. Medvedev, Tsitsipas and Zverev are the only players to have beaten him before and all of them have done so on multiple occasions.
Reigning champion Medvedev is on level footing with two players in his group when it comes to their head-to-head. He is currently tied with Zverev at 5-5 and is 1-1 against Hurkacz. However, he has beaten Berrettini in both of their previous meetings.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ruud has only scored three wins over his fellow ATP Finals title contenders. Recording two victories against Berrettini and one over Tsitsipas. This means he is yet to beat two out of the three players he will face in the group stages.
Key
- Green = members of Green Group
- Red = member of Red Group
- Blue = potential semi-final/final head-to-heads when the two groups merge into the knockout stages
ATP Finals appearances
Djokovic is significantly the most experienced player when it comes to most times played in the season-ending event. This year will be the 14th time he has played in the event which is almost triple that of anybody else. After him, former champion Zverev will be making his fifth appearance. Djokovic is seeking to win the title for a sixth time which will tie the all-time record currently held by Roger Federer. Furthermore, if he wins two or more matches he will overtake Ivan Lendl for most matches won at the ATP Finals and moved into second on the leaderboard. He is currently on 38 wins but even if he goes unbeaten this year it will not be enough to surpass Federer who is on 59.
Ruud, who is the youngest player in the field, will be making an historic debut. The 22-year-old is the first Norwegian to qualify for the ATP Finals. Also making his debut is Poland’s Hurkacz at the age of 24. He is the second man for his country to qualify for the event after Wojciech Fibak who finished runner-up back in 1976.
Four out of the eight players in this year’s tournament have previously won the title. Making it the most number of former champions to feature in the ATP Finals since 1994. Besides Djokovic’s five-time triumph, Medvedev, Tsitsipas and Zverev have won the trophy once before.
Titles won in 2021
Djokovic, Ruud and Zverev lead the field in terms of most ATP trophies won in 2021 with each of them winning five titles. Three out of the five trophies won by the world No.1 was at a Grand Slam tournament with the only exception being at the US Open. Djokovic also won a 250 event in his native Belgrade and more recent the Paris Masters. In contrast, all of Ruud’s titles were won at 250 events. During July he became the first ATP Player in a decade to win three straight titles within as many weeks. Finally, Zverev claimed gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games in what he describes as one of the biggest achievements of his career. He also won two 500 events and two Masters 1000.
Russia’s Rublev has won the fewest titles so far in 2021 with just one to his name which occurred at the Rotterdam Open. However, since then he has reached the final of two Masters tournaments as well as a 500 event in Germany. Rublev has also achieved 32 wins on a hard court this season which is the joint-fourth highest on the ATP Tour.
Category of titles won
