TURIN, Italy —
Carlos Alcaraz will spend a
nervous week watching the ATP Finals as Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas bid
to usurp the Spanish teenager as year-end men’s world number one.
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The top-ranked Alcaraz is powerless to stop his
rivals because he is out with an abdomen injury he suffered at the Paris
Masters over a week ago.
Nadal will hope he has shaken off the rustiness he
displayed in Paris when he lost in his first singles match in two months after
spending time at home in Mallorca with his wife and newborn son. The
36-year-old fell to American journeyman
Tommy Paul.
The surest way for Nadal, who won the Australian and
French Open titles in 2022 and is ranked second, to finish year-end number one
for a sixth time is by winning the title in Turin.
Yet he is seemingly unconcerned about joining Pete
Sampras in second on the all-time list of year-end number ones.
“Like I’ve often said, it’s not a priority for me
anymore, because you need a consistency of results that is really only possible
for the younger players,” he told the Gazzetta dello Sport.
“And to be honest, I don’t like talking about what
could happen in the future.”
Nadal could also top the rankings if he wins all
three of his Green Group games and reaches the final while Tsiptsipas stumbles.
The third-ranked Greek, who is in the Red Group,
needs to win all his matches on his way to the title.
Nadal would topple US Open champion Alcaraz if the two
Spaniards finish level on points.
Nadal has a better overall record in the
Grand Slams and Masters tournaments
Nadal opens his campaign on Sunday against
big-serving American Taylor Fritz. His other two group rivals are Norwegian
Casper Ruud and in-form Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
‘A last sprint’
Tsitsipas, who has never
been higher than third, has a very different attitude to Nadal.
“The rankings are there for a reason. They signify
something important,” he said in August when he regained third spot.
“I think that the very next step would be the No. 1
spot, which I hope I can get to one day.”
The 24-year-old has enjoyed a successful year with
two titles and five other finals, though a Grand Slam title still eludes him.
Were he to succeed in finishing number one he would
emulate Chilean Marcelo Rios in 1998 as the only players without a Grand Slam
crown to top the rankings.
Tsitsipas’s task appears harder than Nadal’s as his
group contains two former world number ones in Serbian
Novak Djokovic and Daniil
Medvedev.
Another Russian the exciting mop-haired Andrey
Rublev — a quarter-finalist at both the French and US Open this year — makes up
that quartet.
Djokovic is hoping his rollercoaster of a year —
starting with his expulsion from Australia because he was not vaccinated
against COVID to the high of another Wimbledon crown — ends happily.
The 35-year-old Serb is targeting equaling the
retired Roger Federer’s record of six ATP Finals titles.
It would be “a perfect ending,” Djokovic told ATP
Media on Friday.
“The cherry on the cake, for sure, but it’s a long
way. It’s a long week.”
“It’s the last week of the year on the Tour, it’s
kind of a last sprint, if you will, for all of us.”
“From the very first match you are going to have
extra high intensity.”
For Ruud the finals present a chance to capture a
significant title after losing both the French and US Open finals. He faces
added pressure as his two grandmothers will be in Turin to watch him.
“They don’t come to watch too much,” Ruud told the
ATP website.
“Sometimes they are a little bit frustrated with me
that I don’t invite them too often.
“They are great, but as all grandmothers, they can
maybe be a bit too much at times,” he added smiling.
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