The ATP Finals 2024 are just around the corner. The final tournament of the season begins on Sunday afternoon, with the top eight players of the season competing against each other. We took a closer look at all the participants in the ATP Finals.
Although it is only partially true that the eight best players of the season are taking part. Novak Djokovic decided to withdraw, so his place went to the Russian Andrey Rublev. This means that for the first time since 2001, the ATP Finals will take place without the “big three”: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
But the German Alexander Zverev is taking part, while Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are considered the main favorites. But we have looked at the statistics from this year to analyze who should really be considered the favorite.
ATP Season: Alexander Zverev played the most matches
Sascha Zverev has actually played an enormous number of matches in 2024. He has played 86 matches, making him one of the players on the Challenger and ATP tours with the most matches. He has also played by far the most matches among the eight participants in the ATP Finals.
In fact, among the participants, Jannik Sinner and Casper Ruud have played the second-most matches, with only 71 games – 15 fewer than Zverev.
In addition, Zverev is the player among these eight who has won the most matches in 2024, beating Sinner by just one win. However, this gives Sinner a higher win percentage.
What will make Zverev successful?
Service will be an extremely important weapon for Zverev, especially at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, where the court is particularly fast. Although perhaps not quite as fast as the courts in Paris or Cincinnati.
Nevertheless, it will be a factor, as it often is on indoor hard courts, and Zverev should go into the tournament with a lot of confidence.
Zverev is the player who has hit the most aces this season, a total of 758, which averages out to about nine aces per match. Only Taylor Fritz comes close, as the American hits ten per match.
This is the key to Zverev’s success, in the past and in the future. The German has a 71 percent first serve rate in 2024, exceeded only by Sebastian Baez among all players on the tour. In addition, Zverev wins 77% of his points after his first serve.
The other players’ statistics in this metric range from 60 to 66%, with Alex de Minaur only reaching 54%, which is far too low.
Zverev has spoken about the importance of a high first serve rate before. He mentioned it just recently in Hamburg, where he said the following:
“It was my first serve that cost me the US Open final that time, and I said to myself that I must never lose a match again because I didn’t put enough first serves into play. That’s why it’s a big area of focus for me, and it’s something I’m still working hard on.”
Zverev has won a remarkable 90 percent of his own service games in 2024, only surpassed by Sinner, and he wins 9% more of his own service games than de Minaur, as well as significantly more than Alcaraz and the others.
Danish TV2 expert Peter Bastiansen also points out that this is the German’s biggest weapon, but also sees room for improvement:
“He has a great serve, we know that. It’s big, so he can get a steep angle, and he serves incredibly hard.”
And further: “Unfortunately, I think he has actually become a bit more conservative with his serve. He’s not taking as many risks, which means his famous serve percentage is high, but against the best servers in the world, you have to take more risks.
“That’s why he often struggles to beat the very best players in the biggest matches.”
ATP Finals: Zverev has room for improvement here
While Zverev’s serve is exceptionally strong, his return of serve does not reach the same heights.
He wins 30 percent of points on his opponents’ first serves and 51% on their second serves. While that’s not bad, it’s on the low side compared to the best players.
Both Sinner and Alcaraz, as well as de Minaur, outperform him here. For example, de Minaur wins 34% and 56% on opponents’ first and second serves.
Weakness Zverev’s mentality?
It would be unfair to describe Zverev as mentally weak. He has reached Grand Slam finals and won both the Olympics and the ATP Finals. Nevertheless, it remains a talking point that he is not always 100% present at crucial moments.
It is therefore interesting to note that Zverev is in last place among the eight players when it comes to converting break points on his opponent’s serve into actual breaks.
Zverev converts around 37 percent of his break points, a figure that is only lower than that of Andrey Rublev, who is also known for his somewhat unstable mentality. Rublev converts 36% of his break points.
Peter Bastiansen is not surprised and even calls it quite expectable: “Zverev is not a ‘clutch’ player like some others are. That doesn’t make him a worse player, but there are just players who have a special gene that allows them to win almost every important point.
“I don’t have that feeling with Zverev. There are just a few too many unforced errors at crucial moments, and he’s not quite as good at managing his emotions as Jannik Sinner, for example.”
Zverev begins his campaign at the ATP Finals on Monday evening, where he will face Andrey Rublev. All statistics were collected via the official ATP Tour website. If you want to see all the data in raw form, you can do so by clicking on this sheet.
Is Zverev now the favorite of the ATP Finals?
Tennis expert Bastiansen sees good chances for the German, who has already won the tournament once in 2021.
“I see Zverev as the one who will challenge Alcaraz and Sinner. I don’t think the other players are capable of that. Maybe in a single match in the round robin, but I refuse to believe that they can make it to the end.”
“That’s why it’s up to Zverev to challenge the two best players in the world right now, because I still consider them to be so, even though Zverev is currently ranked higher than Alcaraz.“
”It wouldn’t surprise me if Zverev wins, but I am worried about his stamina, given the number of matches he has played, even though he did really well in Paris.”
Alexander Zverev will start in the ATP Finals on Monday afternoon, where he will face Andrey Rublev.
