With four men already signed, sealed and delivered for the ATP’s London finale in November, the opportunities to grab one of the remaining spots are growing fewer.
The Asian swing, which heads to its climax at the Shanghai Masters next week, is thus an important stretch for those with ATP Finals ambitions. This week, 500 points are up for grabs by the ultimate champions in Beijing and Tokyo, and a rank-boosting 1,000 awaits the winner in Shanghai.
Then there are just three weeks of blood, sweat and tears to pick up more points under the roofs of Europe—a maximum of 250 in Moscow, Antwerp or Stockholm, then up to 500 points in Basel or Vienna, and finally another 1,000 in the last Masters of the year, Paris. No wonder so many players fall by the wayside with injury and fatigue before the calendar is complete.
It all means that, although there are, in theory, enough points remaining for many in the current top 20 to make the London cut, in practice it is a rare player who chooses to play back-to-back from Shanghai to Paris—though poor results in Asia can force the issue for those on the cusp of qualification.
Two men who will surely be feeling confident of their chances are current Nos 5 and 6 in the Race to London, Dominic Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas. They have relatively clear water between themselves and the next three in line, two of whom lost early in Beijing, while the third man, Kei Nishikori, is set to miss Shanghai, too, with injury.
Both Thiem and Tsitsipas have certainly put in the hard yards and got the rewards through 2019.
Thiem, no stranger to London, won his first Masters title in Indian Wells, one of three titles this year, and reached his second consecutive French Open final. Thus far, as the top seed, he has made the quarters in Beijing, and will seal qualification with a final finish. But he has his work cut out to advance, for he has drawn wild card Andy Murray, and if he gets past the former No1 and Beijing champion, Thiem will have to take on Karen Khachanov or Fabio Fognini.
Tsitsipas, still age just 21, continued to impress with two titles this year, plus his second Masters final in Madrid, a semi run at the Australian Open—and he, like Thiem in Indian Wells, beat Roger Federer in the process—and he reached a career-high No5 after Wimbledon. A tough US Open swing, with no match-wins, slowed his speedy upward progress, but he battled past the defending Beijing champion, Nikoloz Basilashvili, to reach the quarters, score his 40th match-win, and consolidate his place at No6.
With Nishikori out of contention at least until the tour moves to Europe, the defending ATP Finals champion, Alexander Zverev can overtake him with another win in Beijing. He currently has 2,165 points in the Race, only 15 points behind Nishikori, and 20 points behind eighth-placed Matteo Berrettini. So 45 points from beating Sam Querrey will take him into eighth.
The 22-year-old German found himself in the doldrums for much of this season as he contended with personal and management problems away from the court. He dipped from No3 in the world, via six first-round losses, to just 11 in the Race at the start of Beijing. But he impressed against the classy, fast-rising teenage Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the quarters. Meanwhile, Querrey needed more than two and a quarter hours and three tough sets to get past Diego Schwartzman.
Meanwhile, David Goffin trails Zverev by only 20 points after making the quarters in Tokyo. The Belgian, who has at last, it seems, started to put a string of injury problem behind him, is aiming to qualify for the third time, having stormed to a runner-up finish in 2017. He dipped to 33 before the grass season, but made the finals in Halle, his first quarter-final at Wimbledon, the final of the Cincinnati Masters, and has beaten two tough opponents in Tokyo, where he was champion in 2017.
His problem, however, is that he is likely to face the only top-10 player in the draw, who happens to be world No1 Novak Djokovic, in the semis, while the bottom half of the draw has no top-50 player left standing.
Goffin came to Beijing with just one match, a loss, since the US Open, and so perhaps feels confident in being one of that rare band to play a full schedule until the Paris Masters. He is, in short, giving himself every possible chance of qualifying for London after missing out with a shoulder injury through the end of 2018.
Race ahead of quarter-finals in Beijing and Tokyo
1 Rafael Nadal 9,225 [qualified]
2 Novak Djokovic [Tokyo QF] 7,355 [qualified]
3 Roger Federer 5,510 [qualified]
4 Daniil Medvedev 4,875 [qualified]
5 Dominic Thiem 3,935
6 Stefanos Tsitsipas 3,160
7 Roberto Bautista Agut 2,395
8 Matteo Berrettini 2,185
9 Kei Nishikori [out of Tokyo and Shanghai] 2,180
10 Alexander Zverev [Beijing QF] 2,165
11 David Goffin [Tokyo QF] 2,145
12 Gael Monfils 2,125
13 Fabio Fognini [Beijing QF] 2055
14 Diego Schwartzman 1850
15 Stan Wawrinka [out of Shanghai] 1,670
16 John Isner [Beijing QF] 1,670
17 Felix Auger-Alisassime 1,591
18 Lucas Pouille [Tokyo QF] 1,555
19 Guido Pella 1,520
20 Karen Khachanov [Beijing QF] 1,515