ATP Next Gen Finals: Who’s in the race to Jeddah? And how will the event evolve?

This article is part of the series The Next Generation. While the greats, such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal, are the past, and Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek tackle the present, The Athletics examines the next generation: the rising stars who must secure the future of tennis.

Over the past seven years, the ATP Next Gen Finals has firmly established itself on the tennis calendar. There was much excitement when it began in Milan in 2017, as a way to showcase the eight best 21-and-under players from the previous season, while testing out different rules and innovations that could then flow onto the main ATP Tour.

The tournament was the first to use electronic line calling and a video review system, while the scoring system is unique: five sets of first to four games, with a tiebreak at 3-3 in each set. The idea is to have fewer games with less at stake, and more games at the “business end” of sets.

The rules have been slightly adjusted for 2024, with the age limit now at 20 instead of 21, in recognition of the fact that players such as Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune have made their breakthrough earlier than was typical at the start of the tournament. When the finals began in 2017, with the Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic still so dominant, it was rarer for players to make their mark at the age of 21 or younger.

This year’s event will also have a different timeslot, moving from early December last year to December 18-22 – meaning it will almost act as a pre-season event for 2025 (with the first events of next year’s season starting on December 27-30). Like last year, the tournament will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The eight qualifiers are still unknown, but several players are already in strong positions. More broadly, the ATP Next Gen Finals is approaching a tipping point. With the Big Three slowly fading away, either through retirement or as their grip on the sport’s biggest prizes wane, how the event will evolve—and the nature of its role within the tennis ecosystem—is a topic of debate. And beyond the men’s game, how likely is a similar event on the women’s side, and where might it happen?

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To start with the question 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 exploded as quickly as some might have expected, but it has still been a year that has seen him reach the fourth round of Wimbledon and win his first ATP 500-level event – ​​beating Alexander Zverev on the German’s home turf in a thrilling final in Hamburg two months ago.

Arthur Fils in charge of Wimbledon. (Glyn Kirk / AFP via Getty Images)

Next in the race is American Alex Michelsen, who was defeated in the second round of the US Open by Jannik Sinner last month. The 20-year-old Californian is ranked No. 47 after a hugely promising summer that saw him reach the finals in both Newport, Rhode Island, and Winston-Salem, NC, and the quarterfinals at the Citi Open in Washington, DC.

Behind them are Shang Juncheng (19, from China), Jakub Mensik (19, from the Czech Republic) and Luca Van Assche (20, from France). All three of these players have reached the third round of the Grand Slam this year. Shang, known as Jerry, and Mensik are ranked in the world’s top 70 and are fairly safe bets to make it to Jeddah, while Van Assche is just outside the world’s top 100.

Below him are the three players currently in the qualifying spots, separated by just 79 points. They are Brazil’s Joao Fonseca (18), American Learner Tien (18) and Lithuania’s Vilius Gaubas (19). Fonseca and Tien have both garnered a lot of attention in 2024 for notable performances in Rio and Winston-Salem respectively. Earlier this year, Tien went on a 28-match winning streak between May and July to earn a wildcard into the US Open.

Joao Fonseca celebrates his Davis Cup victory this month. (Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images for ITF)

The players closest to one of the last qualifying spots are Portugal’s Henrique Rocha and Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong (both 20). They are only 21 and 31 points behind Gaubas respectively.

If 21-year-olds were still eligible, another exciting Frenchman, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, and Luca Nardi, who beat Novak Djokovic earlier this year at Indian Wells, would be in the qualifying spots. And also American Zachary Svajda.

Even if those 21-year-olds were eligible, it still wouldn’t be a stellar lineup compared to the first edition, which in 2017 included Andrey Rublev, Denis Shapovalov, Daniil Medvedev and Borna Coric — all youngsters who had a fair bit of buzz around them. Likewise, the two alternatives Stefanos Tsitsipas and Frances Tiafoe.

Overall, it’s an event that’s a good indicator of future success. The winners of the Next Gen Finals are Chung Hyeon, Tsitsipas, Sinner, Alcaraz, Brandon Nakashima, and Hamad Medjedovic. Of the first four, 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 run of injuries since his Next Gen title. Earlier this month, a video from the 2019 event circulated, featuring Sinner alongside Tiafoe and Alex de Minaur ahead of all three competing in the US Open quarterfinals. Tiafoe made it to the semifinals; Sinner won the whole thing.

The ATP has been pleased with the event’s ability to showcase young players, with solid turnout in Milan when it was held there between 2017 and 2022. It’s no surprise that Jeddah was more challenging last year.

The idea of ​​a Next Gen Finals has become a well-established concept in men’s tennis, and an annual event is one way to cement that. The different scoring system, the singles-only court, and innovations like headsets that allow players to talk to their coaches give the Finals a distinctive feel. The impressive list of past winners (and runners-up like Rublev, De Minaur, and Sebastian Korda) lends it credibility. And as long as players from the Next Gen Finals go on to the top of the sport, rather than immediately vaulting past the event into the stratosphere, the ATP sees it as a valuable fixture on the calendar.

There have been talks about hosting such an event on the WTA Tour in Saudi Arabia, The Athletics has been told by well-placed sources who wish to remain anonymous to protect relationships, but nothing has been confirmed (and there certainly won’t be an event this year). In November, the WTA Finals will be held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh for the first of three editions there.

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If a Next Gen-style event were to take place, the WTA would have to decide on the age limit. WTA players have typically broken through faster than ATP players, partly because women are generally more physically mature than men. However, there are currently only 11 players 21 and under in the top 100 (nine for men) and six players under 20 (four for men).

So an event for both age groups would work well without having to have it be too young an age group, which could feel like too much pressure too soon. That said, Coco Gauff would obviously skip a Next Gen style event, as she would qualify for the main WTA Finals.

The WTA also has a history of hosting these types of events. Between 2014 and 2018, there were five editions of the Future Stars event, which showcased some of the best young talent in the game. However, these were done by region and by invitation. In 2015, ahead of the WTA Finals in Singapore, four players aged 23 or younger were selected to compete. The parameters were that two of the players had to be from Asia-Pacific and the others from the rest of the world. Nine years later, the selection has aged extremely well, with the quartet consisting of Naomi Osaka, Zhu Lin, Caroline Garcia and Ons Jabeur. Osaka, who had just turned 18, won the event.

Naomi Osaka had already won four major titles by the age of 23. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

A modern-day equivalent would likely generate a lot of excitement, as it has occasionally done for the men’s event, especially if real future stars like Alcaraz are involved.

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(Top photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)