ATP Finals Preview: No Novak Djokovic, nor his historic rivals, but plenty of intrigue

The eight players who have qualified for the 2024 ATP Finals have been split into two groups. The most eye-catching news may be who isn’t in either of them: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. For the first time since 2001, none of the Big Three are taking part in the tour’s year-end championships. Djokovic, despite not winning any tour events in 2024, managed to qualify, but elected not to play.

Chalk it up as another small sign of generational turnover in the men’s game. More than any other event, the Finals are for the elite only—the eight players who make it there are the tour’s ruling class for that season. While Nadal never won it—and, frankly, wasn’t all that interested in it—Federer and Djokovic made it a big part of their résumés.

Federer won it six times, before Djokovic—as is his habit—one-upped him with his seventh ATP Finals title in 2023. Federer’s demolition of Andre Agassi in the 2003 final in Houston signaled a changing of the guard, while Djokovic’s close two-set win over Federer in the 2012 final in London was a key moment in his rise to dominance.

It’s fitting that the 2024 Finals would bring an end to a streak of Big Three participation, because this is also the first season since 2003 in which none of them won a Grand Slam title. Instead, the tour’s new, two-man ruling class—Jannik Sinner, 23, and Carlos Alcaraz, 21—split the four majors. Now the new Big Two will try to follow in the footsteps of Federer and Djokovic and start their own winning traditions at the season-ending championships. While Sinner has already the clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking, and Alcaraz has dropped to No. 3, a title run by the Spaniard in Turin would give him an edge of his own.

Sinner and Alcaraz have yet to win a year-ender, but each is in a group with a player who has. No. 2 seed Alexander Zverev won in London in 2018, and in Turin in 2021; this year he’s landed in Alcaraz’s group. Daniil Medvedev won in London in 2020; he’s in Sinner’s group.

Once upon a time—like, three years ago—Zverev, now 27, and Medvedev, now 28, looked like they would be the heirs to the Big Three. That didn’t happen. So far the German and the Russian have won just one major title between them. At the same time, you can’t call them a lost generation quite yet, either.

Each was one set away from a Slam win in 2024; Medvedev lost in five to Sinner in Melbourne, Zverev lost in five to Alcaraz in Paris. Together, Sinner and Alcaraz just barely lead Medvedev and Zverev in their overall head-to-heads, 20-18. So in a sense, the group stage of this Finals will be a fight between two different sets of heirs to the Big Three. Sinner and Alcaraz have supremacy at the moment, but this is a chance for Zverev and Medvedev to mount a challenge heading into 2025.

Can any of the bottom four in Turin—Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Alex de Minaur, Andrey Rublev—get in their way? Ruud, who has made a final and a semifinal in Turin, if the most obvious candidate based on past performances. Rublev has also been to a semifinal here, in 2022.

But it’s Fritz, a semifinalist in 2022, who is the most intriguing to me. With Djokovic’s withdrawal, the American starts in the No. 5 spot, and in a group with Sinner and Medvedev. That’s a good place for him, as far as his evolution goes, because he hasn’t played either of those guys often—he’s 0-1 vs. Medvedev, and 1-2 vs. Sinner. Fritz has put himself on the cusp of the Slam-winning elite. Let’s see if he can take one more step up in 2024, or whether he hits a ceiling again.

To finish where I started, what are the chances we see a season-ending title match between Sinner and Alcaraz? Each will face his own obstacles.

Alcaraz will need to be consistent, which he isn’t always is, and he’ll need to show he is still a cut above Zverev, who has overtaken him at No. 2. The Spaniard and the German are 5-5; their showdown may be the most important of the round-robin contests.

So far in 2024, Sinner has seemed immune to pressure. He won his first Australian Open final, and his first US Open final, and he’s well ahead of everyone when it comes to ranking points. But will that last fact bring a new and unfamiliar set of expectations with it? He’s not just jousting for No. 1 now. He’s the clear favorite, at a tournament he’s never won.

But that’s the way it was in Melbourne, and in New York. Why would this season end with anything other than a Sinner victory in Turin?