Rafa Nadal and Tomas Berdych were the last two players to seal their places in the ATP World Tour Finals this week, joining Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka at the end of season showdown.
There are just three weeks left on the calendar and plenty points up for grabs, starting with Stockholm (250), Moscow (250) and Vienna (500) this week. Valencia (250) and Basel (500) feature next week on the calendar with the regular season coming to an end with the Paris Masters (1000) in the first week of November.
In pole position to take the remaining two places are Kei Nishikori and David Ferrer, currently on 3945 and 3445 points respectively. As things stand, the Spaniard holds a comfortable advantage of 945 points over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in ninth position, but with the form the Frenchman is in, it could turn into scrap right to the death. Both players are featuring in Vienna this week and the Tsonga hold the advantage of having three zeros in his “best other results” points tally.
To explain this, the race system works by computing the players’ results at all four grand slams, eight mandatory Masters 1000 events (Monte Carlo despite being a Masters 1000 event is not mandatory) and his six other best results (Monte Carlo is included in this bracket).
Behind Tsonga, there is a group of players who have a slight chance of making the World Tour Finals, although the odds are stacked hugely against them. Gasquet is tenth on 2445 (-1000 from the cut off), Anderson is on 2385 (-1060), Isner is on 2315 (-1130) and then there’s Cilic and Raonic who would pretty much need a miracle to return to the event they were a part of in 2014.
Realistically the last two spots will be shared between Nishikori, Tsonga and Ferrer. The Japanese player isn’t featuring this week but is set to re-appear next week in Basel. However, his injry problems have been an issue throughout his career and more so this year, meaning that ninth place could potentially be enough to play in London if Nishikori is forced to withdraw.
Alternates tend to get a call-up to the World Tour Finals: in 2014 Rafa Nadal didn’t make it to the event and his place was taken by Marin Cilic, while Milos Raonic pulled out during the tournament and was replaced by David Ferrer; in 2013 Gasquet replaced the injured Murray and in 2012 Nadal again couldn’t make it, with Tipsarevic taking his place in the round robin. So, looking back over the years, it pays off to finish ninth or tenth as a door to the World Tour Finals tends to open.
In the doubles event, six places have already been allocated: Bryan/Bryan, Rojer/Tecau, Dodig/Melo, Murray/Peers, Bolelli/Fognini and Herbert/Mahut. Matkowski/Zimonjic and Bopanna/Mergea currently hold the final two places with a significant advantage over Sock/Pospisil , Peya/Soares and Cabal/Farah in the following positions.
