Novak Djokovic hopes for Asia

One of the most famous tennis players in the world, Novak Djokovic, is at risk of not playing at the Nitto ATP Finals, the final tournament of the year, which will be held in Turin. In order to get into the top eight participants in this most prestigious competition, the Serb, as the winner of one of the Grand Slam championships this season, needs to be in the top twenty. So far, Djokovic is in 15th place in terms of points scored since January. This week he will perform in Tel Aviv, and next week in Astana.

One of the main features of the current season in men’s tennis is the situation Novak Djokovic is in. Failing to take part in the Open Championships australia and USA due to the lack of vaccination against coronavirus, it is still before Wimbledon twice lost leadership in the world classification, and having won it, did not stay in the top five, since the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) refused to award rating points there due to the non-admission of Russians and Belarusians to the English major. As a result, at the moment, Djokovic has played only six tournaments in 2022, the results of which count towards the rating. Thanks to the victory in Rome, the final in Belgrade, the semi-final in Madrid, the quarter-finals in Dubai and at Roland Garros, as well as the performance in Monte Carlo, where the Serb dropped out after the very first match, he has scored 1970 points since the beginning of January and occupies in the corresponding ATP classification Race 15th place. Considering that there are very few major competitions left on the calendar, it is quite a long way to the eighth position, which is occupied by Alexander Zverev from Germany with 2700 points.

However, this does not mean at all that Djokovic’s chances of participating in the final tournament of the year are minimal. The fact is that, according to the ATP regulations, the last ticket to Turin is guaranteed to a player who has a victory in the Grand Slam tournament and ranks below eighth, but above 21st. If there are two such tennis players, then the worst of them becomes the first reserve. True, this paragraph of the rules is applied very rarely. In 2001, he allowed the sensational Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic to play in Sydney, and a year later two players took advantage of him at once: the winner of Roland Garros Spaniard Albert Costa and the Australian Open champion Swede Thomas Johansson, who replaced Andre Agassi along the way in Shanghai.

Thus, in terms of participation in the Nitto ATP Finals, Djokovic’s task for the next few weeks is to stay in the top twenty.

And it is quite solvable, given that the Australian Alex de Minaura, standing in the ATP Race in 21st place, has 1610 points. That is, Djokovic, of course, nothing is guaranteed yet. But it is only possible with great difficulty to imagine that in a little over a month six people will bypass it at once. And he himself does not intend to sit idly by. This week, the Serbian competes at the Tel Aviv Watergen Open, a 250 category tournament hosted in Israel by the former St. Petersburg Open Mikhail Mirilashvili. In addition to Djokovic, two more representatives of the top twenty arrived there – Croatian Marin Cilic and Argentinean Diego Schwartzman. And next week, the Serbian will go to the Astana Open, a larger 500 category competition, where he was given a wild card by the President of the Tennis Federation of Kazakhstan, Burat Utemuratov. There, the competition will be much higher, since the participation of the first racket of the world Spaniard Carlos Alcaras, Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrei Rublev, Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, Pole Hubert Hurkach are expected to participate.

According to preliminary estimates, in order to secure a ticket to Turin, Djokovic needs relatively little – another 150-200 points. That is, he needs to reach the final in Tel Aviv or the semi-finals in Astana. Last weekend, he had game practice in London, participated in the Laver Cup – a match between the world and Europe teams. There, Djokovic won the first meeting and lost the second, after which he complained of problems with his wrist.

Evgeny Fedyakov