Jannik Sinner was the first player to qualify for the 2024 ATP Finals in Turin, and he’s now been followed by Alexander Zverev, who became the second player to qualify for the year-end event.
The ATP Finals is the final showdown of ATP players during a tennis season. It’s played at the end of the season, and only the best of the best qualify for the tournament. The top 8 players with the most earned points play at the event unless one of them is not capable of playing. In that case, the next best on the list takes his place.
Sinner, who is the world number one, has already secured his place there, having acquired enough points thanks to his tremendous year, which includes trophies at the Australian Open, Miami Open, and the recently concluded Cincinnati Open.
The second player to officially join him at the ATP Finals is not Carlos Alcaraz, nor is it Novak Djokovic. While the Spaniard is likely to qualify, the Serbian might find himself out of the Top 8. It depends on how many events he plays for the rest of the year, as he’s currently only seventh in the Race.
Zverev is the second player to qualify officially, and it comes after a very consistent year for the German, in which he has totaled 56 wins already. That’s the most out of all players and matches his total from last year.
It’s his second-best in recent years, behind 2021, when he had 59 wins, so the German is well on his way to winning the most matches he’s won in recent years. His career-best came in 2018 when he won 62 matches.
His qualification for the ATP Finals comes after his most recent win at the 2024 US Open, where he bested Brandon Nakashima to progress into the quarter-final of the tournament, which was also his 450th career win.
"I was extremely defensive at the beginning of the match and Brandon used it very well and played an awesome set. knew that I had to step up my game and take the ball on the rise more and I did well today and I am happy to be back in the quarter-finals."
Some of his notable runs this year include the Australian Open, where he made the semi-final, losing to Daniil Medvedev in five sets. He made the quarter-finals in Indian Wells, the semi-finals at the Miami Open, and the final at Roland Garros.
His lone trophy this year came at the Italian Open, but overall, it's been a very consistent year for Zverev. The rankings, in essence, are a consistency marker. The more consistent a player is, the more likely they will be to be ranked highly because they’re accumulating many points weekly.
That’s exactly what Zverev has been able to do this year, and it was good enough to secure him a spot in Turin already in early September. He has fond memories of the ATP Finals, having won the event in 2021, after which he missed the event in 2022 due to his injury.
He returned last year, which he singled out as the most impressive feat in his return, but couldn’t come out of the group stage. With how he’s played this year, the German will certainly be a threat to win the event, but for now, he’s focused on the US Open, where he’s in the quarter-finals.
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