Top seed Jakub Mensik withdraws from 2025 Next Gen ATP Finals

Jakub Mensik was supposed to be the highest-ranked player at this year's Next Gen ATP Finals, but he withdrew from the event a week before its scheduled start.

In 2025, the Next Gen ATP Finals will run from December 17th to 21st in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. That's a very unusual date for a tennis tournament, as it's long after the last official ATP tournament, but also quite a long time before the start of the first tournament of the season, so it's technically held in the middle of the off-season.

That puts some of the players in a tricky position. Players usually want to prioritize their off-season to start the new season in the best possible shape. On top of that, there are no ATP points awarded at the Next Gen ATP Finals.

This year, Jakub Mensik qualified for the tournament as the highest-ranked player, with Joao Fonseca being the second-highest-ranked qualifier. However, neither will compete at the event, which will certainly be a disappointment for the tournament organizers.

Fonseca announced his withdrawal some time ago, but Mensik, surprisingly, appeared to be interesting in competing in Jeddah. A week before the tournament start, however, he announced his withdrawal, citing "medical grounds" as a reason for his withdrawal.

After the withdrawals of Mensik and Fonseca, the current field consists of Learner Tien, Alexander Blockx, Dino Prizmic, Martin Landaluce, Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, Nishesh Basavareddy, who recently hired Daniil Medvedev's ex-coach, Rafael Jodar, and Justin Engel, who replaced Mensik.

Although the Next Gen ATP Finals is an exciting event for the lower-ranked young players, it has one issue. Since there are no points awarded at the event and the prize money isn't particularly exciting, the event fails to attract the most talented young players every year.

Those prodigies who are ranked incredibly high for their age just don't have an interest in competing at the Next Gen ATP Finals, and the issue was already evident during the first edition of the event in 2017, when Alexander Zverev, ranked fourth in the world at the time, withdrew. He was ranked 31 places above the second-highest-ranked Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier, Andrey Rublev.

In 2018, two of the top three young players withdrew, as Zverev and Denis Shapovalov chose not to compete. In 2019, three of the four highest-ranked young players chose not to compete, as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Shapovalov all withdrew from the event.

The event was not held in 2020, but in 2021, the top two seeds, Jannik Sinner and Auger-Aliassime, withdrew yet again. In 2022, Carlos Alcaraz was the world No. 1 player but still eligible for the tournament. He didn't compete at the Next Gen ATP Finals, nor did second-seeded Holger Rune and third-seeded Sinner.

The 2023 edition of the tournament was probably the worst when it comes to the highest-ranked young players missing the Next Gen ATP Finals. All four highest-ranked youngsters missed the tournament. Alcaraz, Rune, Ben Shelton, and Lorenzo Musetti were those players.

In fact, the 2024 edition of the tournament marked the first time in its history that the highest-ranked qualified player participated. Arthur Fils competed in the event last year, but he was eliminated already in the round-robin stage.