ATP Tour Finals: No stopping Novak Djokovic from topping year-end tournament and year-end rankings

Novak Djokovic has won three of the year’s four Grand Slams, losing in the final at Wimbledon 2023 to Carlos Alcaraz. And since that Wimbledon loss in July, Djokovic has won 18 straight matches. (Photo: AP)

Novak Djokovic is not done yet and has no reason to be. The world’s No. 1 male tennis player, who said he wants more after winning the Paris Masters last Sunday, is all set to finish the year as the world’s highest ranked player. The Nitto ATP Finals, which starts 12 November in Turin, Italy, is his next stop because as he said in Paris, “I’m already turning the next page. This is, fortunately or unfortunately, the way it works for me, and the way I think is the correct, so to say, mentality moving forward.”

The ATP Finals is the year-end climax to the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) season, for which only the top eight male players of the world qualify (Iga Swiatek won the Women’s Tennis Association or WTA Finals a few days ago). Novak Djokovic has won the ATP Finals six times before and is the favourite this time too, as he tends to be for every tournament that he enters.

While I’m still active, I still want to win more and I still want to play at the highest level.

“So considering the circumstances I had in the last seven days,” ATP reported Djokovic as saying after winning his seventh title at the Paris event, “this win has more weight and more value and it’s extra sweet, particularly at this stage of my career. I don’t even know in which stage of my career I am anymore, but I think that every win in a big tournament, maybe the value is double nowadays.”

The Serbian won three of the year’s four Grand Slams, losing in the final at Wimbledon to Carlos Alcaraz which, in retrospect, seems like an aberration. Since that Wimbledon loss in July, Djokovic has won 18 straight matches. That includes three titles, an ATP Masters in Cincinnati which came with a revenge win over Alcaraz in the final, the US Open, and Paris. The US Open was his 24th Grand Slam singles title, tying with Margaret Court on that number. The Paris title was his 40th ATP Masters 1000 trophy, the first player to get to that number. Besides, he now has 70 big titles, which includes Grand Slams, ATP Finals and Masters, way ahead of his long-time competitors, the nearly-retired Rafael Nadal (59 titles) and the fully-retired Roger Federer (54).

Twelve of Djokovic’s 24 Grand Slam titles have come since he turned 30. He has won seven of the last 10 Grand Slams, negating any questions on how far he could go and the impact of advancing age on his abilities. The calendar Grand Slam (all four majors in the same year) has eluded him twice (in 2021 when he lost to Daniil Medvedev at the US Open and this year at Wimbledon) in the last three years, which is one record he could aim for—only Rod Laver among men has done it (twice). His 97 Tour titles bring him closer to Jimmy Connors (109) and Federer (103), another record he could aim for before he believes he has done enough.

“Eventually, one day, I will leave tennis, in about 23, 24 years. And there is going to be new young players coming up,” Djokovic said after winning the US Open, cracking a smile. “Until then, I guess you’ll see me a bit more.”
Only Holger Rune and Alcaraz, among the seven other competitors in Turin, have a respectable record against Djokovic (2-2 head-to-head). The remaining, Medvedev (10-5), Jannik Sinner (3-0), Andrey Rublev (5-1), Stefanos Tsitsipas (11-2) and Alexander Zverev (8-4), have lost more often than they have won against Djokovic.

Since improbably winning Wimbledon, Alcaraz has no titles, from the six tournaments he has participated in. All of these six came in the first half of the year. This does not necessarily denote a slump in form, because he made it to one final and two semifinals after Wimbledon, but failed to convert those opportunities. Turin would be his debut ATP Finals, which works well for Alcaraz who has won three of his 12 tour-level titles on debut, including at The Queen’s Club this year.

But going into the ATP Finals, Alcaraz has less momentum than Djokovic and therefore a harder climb up. “I had the perfect score in Torino last year, five out of five matches,” Djokovic said before the event. “I like playing there. I’m going there with good feelings, with a lot of confidence. I haven’t lost a match since Wimbledon final, so I’m really excited to hopefully finish off the season on a high.”