Spanish Tennis legend Rafael Nadal will be eyeing his maiden title while Serbia’s Novak Djokovic will be looking forward to equaling Swiss great Roger Federer’s record of six wins as some of the biggest stars of the sport lock horns during the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Finals 2022 at Turin, Italy from November 13 to 20.
The ATP finals will mark the conclusion of the ATP Tour this year.
As per Olympics.com, this season-ending men’s championship will feature two tournaments, one each for singles and doubles. It is only the top eight tanked single players or doubles teams from the year who get to play at this event, which is considered as the biggest event on tour after the four Grand Slams, namely Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open.
The current world number 1 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain will be missing the tournament due to an injury. This will leave Nadal, Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Andrey Rublev and Taylor Fritz fighting for the singles title. Alexander Zverev, the previous year’s champion will also miss out after an injury sustained during the French Open marked the premature end of his season.
Nadal, who has the most number of Grand Slam titles (22), will be eyeing his first-ever ATP Finals title. Djokovic, playing for his sixth ATP Finals title, will be looking forward to tying Federer as the most successful player in the tournament’s history. His last title came in 2015.
Greece player Stefanos Tsitsipas, the winner of the 2019 edition of the tournament and the 2020 winner Daniil Medvedev are also playing with an aim to add another title to their cabinet.
This year’s singles event will also impact the world number one ranking as Alcaraz might lose his position to Nadal if the world number to reaches the final undefeated. Tsitsipas can also leapfrog both Spaniards if he becomes an undefeated champion during the tournament.
The tournament format divides players into two groups: Red and Green. Each player/team in a group play the others in a round-robin format.
Following this, the top two players/teams from each group make it to the semi-finals. The top seeds of the tournament are: Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof and United Kingdom’s Neal Skupski.
ATP Finals 2022: Players, teams and groups Singles -Green Group: Rafael Nadal, Casper Ruud, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Taylor Fritz -Red Group: Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Novak Djokovic Doubles -Green Group: Wesley Koolhof/Neal Skupski, Nikola Mektic/Mate Pavic, Ivan Dodig/Austin Krajicek, Thanasi Kokkinakis/Nick Kyrgios -Red Group: Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury, Marcelo Arevalo/Jean-Julien Rojer, Lloyd Glasspool/Harri Heliovaara, Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos.
