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Racing to London: Breaking down the sprint for the last two ATP Finals spots

By Brandon Daniels

Russia's Andrey Rublev celebrates after winning the St. Petersburg Open tennis tournament final match against Croatia's Borna Coric in Saint Petersburg on October 18, 2020. (Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA / AFP) (Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia's Andrey Rublev celebrates after winning the St. Petersburg Open tennis tournament final match against Croatia's Borna Coric in Saint Petersburg on October 18, 2020. (Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA / AFP) (Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images) /
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The Race to the ATP Finals in London has gotten down to the last month. Here is the current overview of the standings and a breakdown of who has a shot to qualify.

The ATP’s biggest tournament of the remainder of the year, the Nitto ATP Finals in London, is set to begin in just about a month (November 15th) and will feature the world’s eight best players. As of today, with Alexander Zverev’s victory in Cologne, six players have officially qualified for the one-week event:

  1. Novak Djokovic (11,740 points)
  2. Rafael Nadal (9,850)
  3. Dominic Thiem (9,125)
  4. Stefanos Tsitsipas (5,925)
  5. Daniil Medvedev (5,890)
  6. Alexander Zverev (4,855)

Now, only two spots remain. With 6 ATP events left, nine players have varying chances to sneak into the year-end event. Here’s a full breakdown of the final month’s sprint and which players have the best shots to join the current group of six.

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As of now, Andrey Rublev (#8) and French Open semifinalist Diego Schwartzman (currently World #9) are the main candidates for the last two spots, with Matteo Berrettini following behind as the only other player over 3,000 points on the year.

The two tournaments this week in Cologne and Antwerp are headlined by 2nd-seeded Schwartzman in Germany and the Goffin/Carreno Busta duo in Belgium. Rublev has the best shot of the yet-to-qualify group, as he’s already captured a title post-French Open (in St. Petersburg) and has proven and has proven to be a legitimate threat on hard courts in the process. While the firey Russian has yet to confirm his entry into any of the tour’s upcoming events, he’ll likely make one last push for the spot before it begins in mid-November.

At his current position (249 points ahead of Schwartzman), Rublev can only hope that the Argentinian doesn’t turn on his best game in this next month as he did in the September clay swing. Schwartzman, on the other hand, will need a deep run this week in Cologne and a solid showing in Paris to jump ahead of Rublev (a title this week will move him a single ranking point ahead).

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Berrettini is next up with a legitimate shot for the final eight. He’s a confirmed for both the ATP 5-0 Vienna event next week and the Rolex Paris Masters, which gives him a maximum of 1,500 points he could gather leading up to the ATP Finals. He’s currently 5-3 on hard courts this year and just 30-31 throughout his career (by far his weakest surface). It’ll be tough for him to put together solid showings, given the great hard-court players that are also vying for an ATP Finals spot, as well, such as Denis Shapovalov, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Gael Monfils.

It’s incredibly tough to break down exactly where each of these players will end up given the sheer number of tournaments left to play in the next month. Andrey Rublev is the most likely candidate to take the 7th spot because of his incredible play as of late. With four titles in 2020 (which is tied with Novak Djokovic for the most this year), it’s almost a given he’ll be heading to London in November.

After that, however, things clog up. Diego Schwartzman isn’t a great hard-court player (5-6 record this year compared to 15-4 on clay), and most of the proven “hard courters” mentioned above have a considerable amount of work to do in order to claim the last spot. As it stands, Schwartzman sits eighth, but a situation similar to Jack Sock in 2017 (where he struggled throughout the year before winning the Paris Masters to qualify for the ATP Finals) could arise from the outside-looking-in group.

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This week’s two events are the European Open 250 in Antwerp and the Bett1HULKS Championship in Cologne. In Cologne, Alexander Zverev is seeking the “Cologne Double” after taking the title last week, which would make him the first player to do so. In Antwerp, Belgian star David Goffin is looking to end his 2020 dry spell in order to make a run to London. He’s the top seed this week in his home country and will have Pablo Carreno Busta waiting on the other half of the draw.

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