ATP Next Gen Finals: Who’s within the race for Jeddah? And how will the event develop?

The athlete

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Over the past seven years, the ATP Next Gen Finals have change into a fixture on the tennis calendar. When they were first held in Milan in 2017, there was great excitement. The top eight players from the previous season aged 21 and under competed against one another and tested various rules and innovations that might later make their way onto the fundamental ATP tour.

The tournament was the primary to make use of electronic line calls and a video review system, while the scoring system is exclusive – five sets with the primary 4 games, with a tiebreak at 3-3 in each set. The idea is to have fewer games with less stakes and more games on the “decisive end” of sets.

The rules have been barely adjusted for 2024. The age limit is now 20 as an alternative of 21. This takes under consideration the indisputable fact that players like Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune had their breakthrough sooner than was usual in the beginning of the tournament. When the finals began in 2017 and the “Big Three” Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were still so dominant, it was less common for players aged 21 or younger to face out.

This 12 months's event also has a special timeframe, moving from early December last 12 months to December 18-22 – meaning it acts almost like a pre-season event for 2025 (with the primary events of next 12 months's season starting on December 27 and 30). Like last 12 months, the tournament shall be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The eight qualifiers usually are not yet known, but several players are already in strong positions. More broadly, the ATP Next Gen Finals are approaching a turning point. With the Big Three slowly leaving the tournament, either through retirement or by loosening their grip on the game's most vital prizes, each the trajectory of the event and its role inside the tennis ecosystem are in dispute. And how likely is a comparable event outside of men's tennis in the ladies's category, and where might it happen?

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Let's start with the query of who will qualify. The man comfortably leading the race to Jeddah is the hugely talented Frenchman Arthur Fils. The 20-year-old may not have taken off quite as quickly as some expected, but it surely was still a 12 months wherein he reached the fourth round at Wimbledon and won his first 500-level ATP tournament – two months ago he defeated Alexander Zverev in his home country in an exhilarating final in Hamburg.

Next within the race is American Alex Michelsen, who was beaten by Jannik Sinner within the second round of the US Open last month. The 20-year-old Californian is ranked a career-high forty seventh after a hugely promising summer wherein he reached the finals in each Newport, Rhode Island, and Winston-Salem, NC, in addition to the quarterfinals on the Citi Open in Washington, DC.

They are followed by Shang Juncheng (19, from China), Jakub Mensik (19, from the Czech Republic) and Luca Van Assche (20, from France). All three players have reached the third round of Grand Slam tournaments this 12 months. Shang, generally known as Jerry, and Mensik are in the highest 70 on the earth rankings and are considered fairly protected candidates for Jeddah, while Van Assche is just outside the highest 100 on the earth.

Below him, the three players currently within the qualifying spots are only 79 points apart. They are Brazilian Joao Fonseca (18), American Learner Tien (18) and Lithuanian Vilius Gaubas (19). Fonseca and Tien have attracted a variety of attention in 2024 with their impressive leads to Rio and Winston-Salem respectively. Earlier this 12 months, Tien went on a 28-match winning streak between May and July, securing a wildcard for the US Open.

The players who could still grab considered one of the last qualifying spots are Portugal's Henrique Rocha and Hong Kong's Coleman Wong (each 20), who’re only 21 and 31 points behind Gaubas respectively.

If 21-year-olds had still been eligible to participate, one other exciting Frenchman, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, and Luca Nardi, who defeated Novak Djokovic in Indian Wells earlier this 12 months, would have been within the qualifying places. As would the American Zachary Svajda.

Even if these 21-year-olds were eligible, it might still not be a stellar line-up in comparison with the primary edition in 2017, which featured Andrey Rublev, Denis Shapovalov, Daniil Medvedev and Borna Coric – all young players who attracted quite a bit of pleasure. The same goes for the 2 reserve players Stefanos Tsitsipas and Frances Tiafoe.

In general, it was an event that was a very good indicator of future success. The winners of the Next Gen Finals were Chung Hyeon, Tsitsipas, Sinner, Alcaraz, Brandon Nakashima and Hamad Medjedovic. Of those top 4, two are multiple Grand Slam winners and future world No. 1s, one is a two-time major finalist and even Chung has an Australian Open semifinal to his name despite a horrific injury streak since his Next Gen title. Earlier this month, a video of the 2019 event made the rounds, featuring Sinner alongside Tiafoe and Alex de Minaur before all three competed within the US Open quarterfinals. Tiafoe made it to the semifinals; Sinner won the entire thing.

The ATP is pleased that the tournament has brought attention to young players. Milan, where it was held between 2017 and 2022, had good attendance. Unsurprisingly, Jeddah was an even bigger challenge last 12 months.

The idea of ​​a Next Gen has change into a well-established concept in men's tennis, and an annual event is one solution to cement that. The different points system, singles court and innovations comparable to headsets that allow players to talk to their coaches give the Finals a particular feel. The impressive list of past winners (and runners-up comparable to Rublev, De Minaur and Sebastian Korda) lends the event credibility. And so long as players move up from the Next Gen Finals to the game's top ranks, and don't jump straight past the event into that stratosphere, the ATP believes it has a worthwhile place on the calendar.

There have been discussions about holding such a WTA Tour event in Saudi Arabia, based on well-informed sources who wish to stay anonymous to guard relationships, but nothing has been confirmed (and there actually won't be an event this 12 months). In November, the WTA Finals shall be held within the Saudi capital Riyadh, the primary of three editions there.

If a Next Gen event were to happen, the WTA would need to make a choice on the age limit. Typically, WTA players have broken through more quickly than ATP players, partly because women generally mature physically before men. However, there are currently only 11 female players under the age of 21 in the highest 100 (nine amongst men) and 6 female players under the age of 20 (4 amongst men).

An event for each age groups would due to this fact be a very good fit, without having to set the age group too young, which could mean an excessive amount of pressure too early. However, Coco Gauff would in fact skip a Next Gen event, as she would qualify for the fundamental draw of the WTA Finals.

The WTA also has a certain tradition of hosting such events. Between 2014 and 2018, there have been five editions of the Future Stars event, which featured a few of the most effective young talents in tennis. However, these were regional and by invitation. In 2015, before the WTA Finals in Singapore, 4 players under the age of 23 were chosen to participate. The parameters were that two of the players needed to be from the Asia-Pacific region and the others from the remaining of the world. Nine years later, the choice has aged thoroughly. The quartet consists of Naomi Osaka, Zhu Lin, Caroline Garcia and Ons Jabeur. Osaka, who had just turned 18, won the event.

A contemporary equivalent would probably generate a variety of excitement, as was the case at times with the boys's competition, especially when real future stars like Alcaraz are involved.

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