Yesterday I shared the top five points of the top 10 things to watch in men's tennis in the 2024 season listed on the ATP official website, and today I will continue to share the remaining five highlights.
6) The new generation of players is ambitious.
Mejdovic, who is the winner of the ATP New Force Finals in Jeddah, is sixth in the eight-man tournament and the Serb is still looking to break into the top 100. And his final opponent in Jeddah, Fes, ended the 2023 season with a career-high 36th place. The 19-year-old Frenchman Van Ascher and the 21-year-old Swiss newcomer Stricker, both currently ranked in the top 100 in the world, are already competitive on the tour and are expected to break through in 2024 and fly higher on a bigger stage.
7) Rublev, Tsitsipas, Zverev and Rune are looking to go one step further at next year's year-end finals.
In 2023, Rublev has risen steadily and reached a career-high fifth in the ATP rankings, while Tsitsipas and Rune have persevered in a mid-season slump to qualify for the Turin Finals. Zverev is back in the top eight after suffering a serious ankle injury to Roland Garros in 2022 in a strong comeback season. All four players qualified for the Turin finals at the last minute, but none of them managed to make it out of the group stage. In the 2024 season, there will be both opportunities and difficulties for them, and the most important thing is to stabilize their position and strive to return to the year-end finals at the end of the year.
8) Ruud and Fritz fight to return to the year-end finals.
Ruud, a three-time Grand Slam runner-up who just celebrated his 25th birthday, qualified for the year-end finals in 2022 with a year-end ranking of third, and finally finished runner-up. That year, American No. 1 brother Fritz replaced Alcaraz, who retired due to injury, as the ninth player at the end of the year, and reached the semifinals for the first time in the year-end finals. However, both have slipped this year, finishing 11th and 10th respectively in the year-end ATP rankings, so both are missing out on the 2023 Turin Finals. A return to the year-end finals is their goal for the new season, with Ruud and Fritz both set to kick off their 2024 season in the second edition of the United Cup. Last year, Fritz helped the U.S. team win the United Cup.
9) Veterans are still not to be reckoned with.
Veterans such as Murray, Wawrinka, Thiem, Monfils, Gasquet and Mannarino have had shining moments in 2023. Murray reached the final at ATP 250 Qatar and won two Challenger titlesWawrinka and Thiem returned to the Tour final in Umag and Kitzbühel respectively;Monfils and Gasquet lifted the trophy in Stockholm and Auckland respectively after many years, and the 35-year-old French veteran Mannarino won three consecutive tour trophies in 2023, returning to the highest ranking in the world at No. 22. Can these veterans who have been with fans for generations do more miracles in 2024?
10) The competition for doubles combinations is fierce.
Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajiczek won the ATP year-end doubles world No. 1 for the first time in 2023. While the Croatian-American duo dominates the top spot, the favourites to end the season are Rajiv Rahm and Joe Salisbury, who have won the US Open three times in a row and the ATP Finals for the second year in a row, capping off the season. The 2024 season is set to heat up the competition between these two doubles pairs. (Home of Tennis Author: mei).