For many weeks, the ATP Race to Turin was simmering, but it could boil down at this week’s Paris Masters. For context, the ATP Race is a calendar-year, performance-based points race that culminates by rewarding the top eight players with a place at the year-end championships in Turin. In addition, the year-end No. 1 ranking is also determined this way. In 2023, the race to the finish line has been fiercely contested. So far five of the eight-man cohort who will play at the season finale have been confirmed. But who are they?
Who Has Qualified For the 2023 ATP Finals in Turin?
Novak Djokovic qualified for the showpiece event for the 16th year, tying Jimmy Connors for the third-most qualifications at the tournament. Djokovic has won the ATP Finals six times (tied with Roger Federer). He’ll have the chance to take the record by himself next month.
Carlos Alcaraz is second in the ATP Race but was actually the first man to qualify for the 2023 ATP Finals after bagging a maiden Wimbledon title in July. The 20-year-old is in the penultimate lap in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking. Just 500 points separate him from Djokovic ahead of his first match at the Paris Masters this week. Alcaraz missed out from competing at the season finale last year due to injury but has declared himself fit to play at this year’s event where he is set to make his debut.
Daniil Medvedev was the third man to qualify. The Russian has been a consistent force on the ATP Tour despite an underwhelming start to the year in Australia. Medvedev has racked up a Tour-leading 47 match wins on hard courts this year with five titles to boot. He is a former champion of the ATP Finals.
Jannik Sinner has played at the ATP Finals before as an alternate, but he’ll get his first taste as a qualifying player in his home country. The Italian has put together a career-best season on tour and could cap it off with his first title at the season-ending championships. Sinner is one of only two players who has beaten Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev this year (the other is Novak Djokovic).
Andrey Rublev sealed his qualification at the ATP Finals for the fourth year in a row at last week’s Vienna Open. The Russian powerhouse reached the semifinals at last year’s event and will be a force to be reckoned with after winning his first Masters title in Monte Carlo.
Who Is Next To Qualify?
Now this is where it gets interesting. Five players have rubber-stamped their tickets for Turin and only three spots are up for grabs. The next in line is Stefanos Tsitsipas who sits in sixth spot, less than 200 points from the cut-off mark. Tsitsipas should in all likelihood qualify by default.
Who Is Likely To Miss Out?
With Tsitsipas almost certain to qualify (a gap of nearly 800 points between him and Taylor Fritz in ninth), that leaves Alexander Zverev and Holger Rune (current occupants of the last two spots for Turin) sweating anxiously. There are 1,000 points to play for in Paris. Zverev in seventh has clocked 3,505 points this year and needs an additional 560 points to be sure.
Rune, meanwhile, has earned 3,290 points and sits precariously in that eighth position where as many as five players could overtake him. Zverev’s form has picked up in the second half of the season. It would take a monumental collapse for him not to qualify. The two-time champion of the ATP Finals will need at least a couple of wins to be safe (but might qualify by default if results go his way this week). However, Rune’s situation is a little bit complicated. If his inconsistent form persists in Paris, he is the likeliest casualty to drop out from the Top 8.
The Dane is just 190 points ahead of Taylor Fritz (9th) and 215 points above Hubert Hurkacz (10th). Beyond that, it is tough to see Casper Ruud (last year’s finalist), Tommy Paul, and Alex de Minaur having a say in this conversation, unless one of them wins the Paris Masters. For Ruud, a runner-up finish might keep him interested, as that would take his points tally to 3,425, and will need a few results going his way during the week. The Norwegian might also need to run the gauntlet in Metz next week (potentially winning the title) where he has signed up to play the final tournament of the regular tennis season.
It is important to note that the aspirants seeking to qualify and who sit between 8th and 13th in the race are all playing in either Metz or Sofia next week. So Paris might not be decisive in determining the last qualifying player.
Main Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports
