ATP Finals: Race to Turin tightens after Hurkacz wins and Zverev loses

The Nitto ATP Finals take place from November 12 to 19 in 2023. The top eight ranked players on the ATP tour will play in the event and the winner will receive $2,200,400 and an undefeated winner can take home $4,740,300. In other words, players play all year to make money throughout the tennis season in hopes of making big money at the end of the year, too.

On Sunday, Hubert Hurkacz won the Rolex Shanghai Masters and moved to number 11 in the ATP rankings. But on Monday, the player who is seventh in the ATP Finals race, Alexander Zverev, lost to Jordan Thompson fairly easily. Thompson won 6-3 6-4. Zverev’s loss opened the proverbial door for other players to have a chance of moving up into the top 8.

Because Zverev lost so early in the Tokyo Open, the rest of the tournament sets up for a fantastic watch as several players that trail the German in rankings are playing in the tournament and then have two more tournaments that follow the Tokyo Open in order to earn points. One is Hurkacz who with a run at the end of the year has the potential to pick up 500 points in Tokyo and 250 points in each of the Stockholm and Antwerp Opens.

Nitto ATP Finals race is getting tighter after Zverev loses on Monday

In the live Pepperstone ATP rankings, Zverev has fallen to 9th and trails Casper Ruud by 225 points. But because the Nitto ATP Finals race factors in points over a calendar year, Zverev is still seventh. The race for number 8 is tight, though. Taylor Fritz, Ruud, and Hurkacz are all within distance of catching Zverev.

Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz are easily No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the ATP Finals rankings. Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner, and Andrey Rublev round out the top five. If the ATP Finals were going to start tomorrow, Stefanos Tsitsipas would also participate.