ATP Finals Preview: Eight Europeans, including Djokovic and Alcaraz, will tangle in Turin

The reports of the decline of European men’s tennis, it turns out, have been greatly exaggerated.

Yes, Team World currently dominates Team Europe in Laver Cup. Yes, Canada is the defending Davis Cup champion. And yes, the United States has more players in the ATP’s Top 100 than any other country. But when it comes to the elite of the men’s tour, the Old World still rules. All eight players in this year’s Nitto ATP Finals—from the oldest, Novak Djokovic, to the youngest, Carlos Alcaraz—hail from the continent.

Conveniently for all of them, Turin, Italy, is in the third year of a five-year run as the host of the round-robin event. The groups have been made, play will start Sunday, and so far no one appears to be injured, or limping to the season’s finish line.

Here’s a look at how the eight players stack up against each other going in, and how they might do on the traditionally quick indoor courts in Turin.

Green Group: Djokovic, Sinner, Tsitsipas, Rune

Novak Djokovic

• Ranking: No. 1
• 2023 Record: 51-5
• Career record vs. rest of group: 16-4

Djokovic is all, or almost all, about the Grand Slams these days, but he can add a few notable non-major achievements to his résumé this week. He can win a record seventh ATP Finals title, passing Roger Federer. He can clinch a record eighth year-end No. 1 ranking. And he can become the first player to reach his 400th week at No. 1. The latter two are virtually guaranteed; Djokovic is 1490 points head of No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, and the Finals offers a maximum of 1500 points to the winner.

What are the chances that Djokovic can add title No. 8? Pretty good. He’s the defending champion, he has won all 18 matches he’s played since Wimbledon, and he’s coming off a strong week of indoor tennis in Bercy. He’s also 3-0 against Jannik Sinner and 11-2 against Stefanos Tsitsipas. Even if he’s all about the Slams, Djokovic has also thrived at the events where he feels a little less pressure recently. Having nothing left to prove can be liberating.

Jannik Sinner

• Ranking: No. 4
• 2023 Record: 57-14
• Record vs. rest of group: 2-10

The last line above stands out, doesn’t it? Sinner is 0-3 against Djokovic, 2-5 against Tsitsipas, and, in the biggest surprise, 0-2 against the younger  Holger Rune.

Which means this is an important week for Sinner heading into 2024, and one where he can prove something to himself and his tour mates. He has already shown that he can win titles; he has four of them this year—including a Masters 1000 in Toronto, and two 500s this fall, in Beijing and Vienna. All of which has vaulted the 22-year-old Italian to a career-high No. 4. Now, in front of his home fans, he has a chance to validate that lofty number, and begin to turn the tide against three top-shelf opponents who have had his number.

Stefanos Tsitsipas

• Ranking: No. 6
• 2023 Record: 51-22
• Record vs. rest of group: 7-15

As always, this season was about quantity for Tsitsipas. He played 24 tournaments, and won just one, in Los Cabos. But a strong clay season in the spring made up for dry spell on grass and hard courts in the summer. After semifinal runs in Vienna and Bercy, the 25-year-old, who won this event in the Before Times of 2019, seems to have turned things back around.

But he’ll need to be better than normal to come out of this group. Tsitsipas is 2-11 against Djokovic, 0-2 against Rune, and when he faces Sinner, most of the crowd will be squarely against him. Since winning the 2019 ATP Finals, Tsitsipas hasn’t made it out of the round-robin stage. He also likes his courts slower than they’ve played in Turin the past two years.

Holger Rune

• Ranking: No. 10
• 2023 Record: 43-22
• Record vs. record of group: 6-2

Rune is the lowest-ranked player in Turin, and one who struggled to get over the finish line. Like Tsitsipas, he had an excellent spring on clay, but he fell off the map once the tour switched to North American hard courts. The controlled indoor conditions in Basel and Bercy suited him—will the presumably faster court suit him as well in Turin, where he’ll make his Finals debut?

Rune may be the lowest-ranked player in the Green group, but he has a surprisingly good record against his prospective opponents this week. He’s 2-0 against Tsitsipas and Sinner, and 2-2 against Djokovic. Rune should, if nothing else, put some spice in the proceedings every time he plays.

Semifinalists: Djokovic, Sinner

Red Group: Alcaraz, Medvedev, Rublev, Zverev

Carlos Alcaraz

• Ranking: No. 2
• 2023 Record: 63-10
• Record vs. rest of group: 5-5

Alcaraz has been the sensation of tennis for two full years, but he’ll be making his ATP Finals debut this week. In 2022, he had to pull out with an injured oblique.

In the 12 months since, Alcaraz has only become more sensational, winning Wimbledon and staging two all-time classic matches with Djokovic. But there are a couple of reasons to wonder if he can make the semifinal in his first trip to Turin.

First, he hasn’t won a title since Wimbledon, and he looked like something less than a superstar last week in Bercy, where he lost his opening-round match in straight sets. Because of that, Alcaraz is about to lose the race to the year-end No. 1 ranking.

Second, he’s just 5-5 against this group. While he did beat Zverev in their last two meetings, he lost to Medvedev at the US Open. Of particular interest, though, will be his match with Rublev: Somehow, they’ve never played before.

Daniil Medvedev

• Ranking: No. 3
• 2023 Record: 64-16
• Record vs. rest of group: 18-11

Medvedev could use a big win. He’s had an outstanding season, claiming five titles, including Masters 1000s on clay and hard court, and knocking off both Djokovic and Alcaraz. But he didn’t get across the finish line at any of the majors. The ATP Finals gives him a chance for the next best thing.

First, Medvedev will have to put the memories of 2022 behind him; last year in Turin, he lost all three of his round-robin matches 7-6 in the third. This time he comes in having won his most recent match against all three opponents: He beat Alcaraz and Rublev at the US Open, and Zverev in Beijing. One problem could be the court: The self-proclaimed hard-court specialist has complained about the speed of the surface in Turin in the past.

Andrey Rublev

• Ranking: No. 5
• 2023 Record: 56-23
• Record vs. rest of group: 5-11

Rublev made the semifinals in Turin a year ago, but the format and the level of competition would seem to be a challenge for him. Medvedev, Zverev, Alcaraz: These are the types of highly-ranked guys he has typically lost to in the quarters and semis of major events throughout his career. He’s 2-6 against Medvedev, and 3-5 against Zverev.

But at 26, is that beginning to change for the Russian? Rublev has won all three of his meetings with Zverev this season, and he edged Medvedev at this tournament last year. He’s also at a career-high No. 5, and coming off a final-round appearance at the Masters 1000 in Shanghai and a close semifinal loss to Djokovic in Bercy. If Rublev wants to keep plowing upward in the rankings in 2024, this would be a good place to start.

Alexander Zverev

• Ranking: No. 8
• 2023 Record: 53-26
• Record vs. rest of group: 15-16

Zverev surely feels satisfied to be here. After his season-ending leg injury at Roland Garros in 2022, it was hardly guaranteed that he would recover to this point, this quickly. But in 2023 he made a semifinal in Paris, a quarterfinal at the US Open, and won two titles.

Still, he may not feel all that good about the group in which he’s been placed. Zverev has a respectable 15-16 record against his three opponents, but he has lost his most recent match to each of them—to Alcaraz at the US Open, to Medvedev in Beijing, and to Rublev in Vienna. But the memories of Turin should be good: The last time Zverev qualified, in 2021, he won the whole thing.

Semifinalists: Medvedev, Alcaraz

Semifinals: Djokovic d. Alcaraz, Medvedev d. Sinner

Final: Djokovic d. Medvedev