Often referred to as the year-end championships, the ATP Finals is the last significant event in the tennis season. Although the four annual Grand Slams enjoy a superior profile on the international stage, the tournament is rightly considered to be the most important indoor tennis tournament in the world. Only the best-performing singles and doubles players on the ATP Tour are invited, creating an awesome spectacle for tennis enthusiasts.
The ATP Finals utilises a different format from all other events on the circuit, facilitating a preliminary group stage before switching to a traditional semi-final and final. The eight qualifiers are split into two groups of four, which informs who each player will face in the initial phase. A round-robin then ensues, with all competitors playing each of their group opponents once. After this, the two players with the most wins in each group advance to the last four, before the final takes place on the last day of the tournament. The exact same framework is used in the doubles competition.
Qualification
The highest-ranked seven players in the ATP Race to Turin automatically qualify for the finals, with one place reserved for a reigning Grand Slam champion who occupies any position between 8th and 20th at the cut-off point. If no player outside the top seven won any of the season’s majors, the spare qualification slot defaults to the eighth-ranked player. There are also two alternates in attendance, who are eligible to replace any injured party throughout the round robin stage.
The ATP Race to Turin adopts a points-based system to determine ranking positions, with players rewarded depending on their progress throughout the campaign. Only the best results from 19 tournaments of varying size and status will count towards their qualification bid, so players can afford to have one or two bad days at the office.
Prize Money
As per all other prestigious sporting events, the ATP Finals boasts an extremely lucrative prize pot. This year’s total purse sits at $15.5 million, a significant $250,000 uplift on twelve months ago. Last year’s undefeated champion Jannik Sinner received an eye-watering $4,881,100 overall, the second-largest payout in tournament history following the $5 million haul issued to 2025 U.S. Open winners Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka, who incidentally were heavily taxed on their earnings.
If one of this year’s singles players can navigate through the entire competition without losing a single match, their reward will exceed the $5 million threshold. As a further bonus, they will be awarded 1,500 ranking points as a major end-of-season boost.
While undefeated doubles champions are given the same volume of points as their singles peers, the prize money on offer is considerably less. Indeed, after emerging triumphant in last year’s doubles segment, German duo Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz earned less than $1 million between them.
A brief history
For the past five consecutive seasons, the tournament has been held at the Palasport Olimpico in the picturesque city of Turin (hence ATP Race to Turin). The same venue – which is incidentally the largest indoor sports arena in Italy – will also assume hosting responsibilities next week, when the 2025 ATP Finals unfold. So, how did it all begin?
The inaugural edition was staged in 1970, under the banner of the ‘Masters Grand Prix’ and as part of the International Lawn Tennis Federation’s (ITLF) grand prix circuit. Although the world’s best players would compete, they were unable to earn ranking points at this event. Thanks to a qualifying system that was used to determine the roster for a handful of subsequent year-end championships, all six singles participants also competed in the doubles bracket. Having already become the tournament’s first doubles champion alongside fellow American tennis legend Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith secured the singles title following four consecutive round robin victories.
The Masters Grand Prix ran concurrently with the competing WCT Finals, an equivalent event on the WTC (World Tennis Championship) circuit. This configuration lasted almost two decades, before the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) assumed control of men’s elite tennis and opted to amalgamate the rival circuits.
Consequently, a new unified tournament – the ‘ATP Tour World Championships’ – was established in 1990, with participants now able to accrue ranking points. Meanwhile, the ITLF introduced the short-lived Grand Slam Cup as an alternative season finale, which pitted the 16 players with the best Grand Slam records from the previous season against one another in a traditional knockout competition. In its nine-year lifecycle, only one player – seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras – won the Grand Slam Cup on more than one occasion.
After almost three decades of facilitating two rival competitions, tennis’ regulatory bodies eventually decided to discard their own events in favour of creating a single, collectively-owned tournament that would serve as the definitive year-end championships. The first iteration of this combined enterprise was known as the Tennis Masters Cup, which entered the tennis calendar at the turn of the millennium. This could be viewed as the advent of the competition’s current guise, as the tournament adopted the same qualifying criteria (a points race determining the initial seven participants, with one space reserved for a lower-ranked Grand Slam champion) we see in today’s ATP Finals.
Over the following nine years, the Tennis Masters Cup visited four cities in four different continents (including Shanghai twice), until yet another rebrand led to the tournament settling in a single long-term venue. The establishment of the Tennis Masters Cup also pre-empted a shift in the organisers’ operational approach, with singles and doubles competitions being consistently staged at the same venue rather than frequently taking place at separate venues.
The newly labelled ‘ATP Tour Finals’ descended on London’s 02 Arena in 2009, before subsequently experiencing a sharp rise in popularity. After the venue’s initial short-term contract ran out in 2013, organisers unsurprisingly decided to hold the event here for a further seven years. The tournament shortened its name to the ‘ATP Finals’ midway through this period, keeping this title ever since. Throughout its eleven-year stay in the English capital, a cumulative total of 2.5 million spectators attended the 02 Arena to watch tennis’ greatest stars compete, although the final edition was unfortunately staged behind closed doors due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The ATP Finals moved to its present home in 2021, but there are rumours of a possible relocation following the conclusion of next season’s championships.
As previously referenced, Jannik Sinner won last year’s singles competition while Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz are the tournament’s defending doubles champions. Having clinched his second Grand Slam crown by overcoming Taylor Fritz just two months earlier, Sinner dispatched the American once again to earn a maiden ATP Finals title. Despite arriving in Turin as the eighth seeds, Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz managed to progress to the final following three impressive performances in the earlier rounds. Having already faced pre-tournament favourites Marcelo Arévalo and Mate Pavić in the round robin stage, the experienced pairing overcame the same opposition in two thrilling tie-breaker sets. Although the Italian is expected to retain his title in 2025, it’s a case of déjà vu for Krawietz and Pütz as they return to the Palasport Olimpico as underdogs.
The Federer-Djokovic hegemony
Throughout the tournament’s recent history, modern icons Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have both enjoyed spells of intense domination. The Serbian superstar just edges the Swiss supremo when it comes to their comparative titles haul, having been crowned ATP Finals champion on seven separate occasions. Federer boasts one fewer title, although he has won more matches at this event than any other player.
Djokovic
After beating Russian ace Nikolay Davydenko in Shanghai to earn his first title, Djokovic proceeded to win a further four consecutively between 2012 and 2015. The eight-time ATP Player of the Year faced Federer in the final on three occasions during this glittering stretch, with the only exception coming in 2013 when he put Rafael Nadal to the sword. Remarkably, the Spaniard – considered an equal to Federer and Djokovic at the peak of his powers – failed to achieve a single ATP Finals success.
In the immediate months leading up to the last title in this sequence, Djokovic won the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open, in turn adding further silverware to his already bustling personal trophy cabinet. There were however back-to-back disappointments in 2016 and 2018, as the Belgrade-born baseliner lost out to familiar foe Andy Murray and gifted youngster Alexander Zverev respectively. The latter was his last showpiece appearance at the 02 Arena, having been forced to wait until 2022 before returning to the final of the competition.
The first of his two triumphs in Turin came after sweeping aside Norwegian talent Casper Ruud in straight sets, before adding his seventh and most recent title twelve months later following a convincing victory over current champion Jannik Sinner. Djokovic’s commanding display against the Italian ensured he became the oldest player to ever win the competition, hoisting the Brad Drewett Trophy aloft at 36 years of age.
Having recently confirmed he’ll be competing this year following intense speculation regarding his attendance, Djokovic could further consolidate his status as the most successful player to have ever graced the tournament, as he sets his sights on breaking several further records.
Federer
A year after suffering a heartbreaking semi-final loss to eventual champion Lleyton Hewitt on his Tennis Masters Cup debut, a young Roger Federer admirably recovered to scoop the top prize in Houston. In the deciding match of the first year-end championships to be played on an outdoor court since Melbourne’s Kooyong Stadium hosted the 1974 edition, Federer produced a memorable triumph over Hall of Famer Andre Agassi. The former world number one then avenged his earlier elimination to Hewitt, dismissing the Australian’s challenge in comfortable fashion at the end of 2004.
A further three successive appearances in the final followed later, with a gruelling five-set defeat to David Nalbandian preceding victories against James Blake and David Ferrer. After adding two ATP Tour Finals titles to his collection in London, Federer was denied a seventh crown after being pipped to the post by Novak Djokovic on three occasions in a frustrating four-year spell.
A competition wrapped in Stars and Stripes
Meanwhile, the year-end championships’ doubles segment has been subject to two separate all-conquering dynasties, both of American heritage. John McEnroe and Peter Fleming conspired to land a staggering seven consecutive titles throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, while Mike Bryan managed to accumulate five ATP Finals crowns alongside his brother Bob before adding a sixth with the assistance of Jack Sock in 2018.
McEnroe/Fleming
After getting the better of European pairing Wojciech Fibak and Tom Okker in successive seasons, McEnroe and Fleming subsequently defeated five other sets of Masters Grand Prix finalists – two of which were all-American partnerships – as they established their supremacy over the entire doubles circuit. They also celebrated winning seven Grand Slams together during this unprecedented period of domination, three of which came at Flushing Meadows. Having secured each of their Masters Grand Prix crowns at the iconic Madison Square Garden, New York City was undoubtedly the central hub of the dynamic duo’s success. This would have been particularly satisfying for McEnroe, who spent his school years in Manhattan and was a former member of Long Island’s Port Washington Tennis Academy.
The serve-and-volley specialist also had further reason to be cheerful in three of those seven victorious year-end championship appearances, having complemented his fruitful exploits in the doubles with three singles titles. This enabled him to become one of only two players to receive the fabled double crown, an honour that was also bestowed upon Stan Smith in 1970.
It’s perhaps worth noting that John McEnroe is also the tournament’s youngest-ever singles champion, having beaten Arthur Ashe, who was incidentally almost twice his opponent’s age, in the 1978 final before exiting his teenage years. Even when McEnroe wasn’t performing at his imperious best, there was still a chance his surname would be etched into a Masters Grand Prix trophy thanks to the participation of his youngest brother. This is exactly what happened in 1989, when Patrick McEnroe joined forces with American compatriot Jim Grabb to win the doubles competition.
Mike Bryan
One-half of the most successful doubles team in the Open Era, Mike Bryan has inscribed his name into tennis folklore. In addition to consistently achieving success at the year-end championships, the Californian claimed an eye-watering 22 Grand Slam titles.
With the help of his identical twin Bob, the Californian earned silverware at each of the opening two editions of the Tennis Masters Cup in Houston, before adding a couple of ATP World Tour crowns to his swelling trophy collection. After Mike and his marginally younger sibling failed to progress beyond the semi-final stage of three consecutive year-end championships following their 2014 win, the Olympic gold medallist opted to partner Jack Sock for the tournament’s 2018 edition. A sixth and final triumph duly arrived, with the Bryan/Sock combination proving too much for French pair Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the 02 Arena showpiece. This victory handed Bryan the dubious honour of being the tournament’s oldest doubles champion, having celebrated his 40th birthday six months prior.
Next Gen ATP Finals
Back in 2017, the Next Gen ATP Finals were incorporated into the annual tennis circuit. The tournament is designed to offer a platform for the tour’s brightest young stars to showcase their capabilities, while challenging to win silverware in a balanced, competitive environment. It was initially open to players of 21 years of age and under, but this threshold dropped to 20 years of age ahead of last season’s championships.
The Next Gen ATP Finals utilises an extremely similar qualification system to the main event, with the seven highest-ranked players at the conclusion of the ATP Race to Jeddah – an alternative leaderboard to the ATP Race to Turin that only features individuals aged 20 years old or younger – gaining instant access. However, rather than being linked to Grand Slam performances, the eighth spot is awarded to a wild card entry following a pre-tournament qualifying competition.
The same framework is also used to structure the path to the final, with a round robin stage determining the four players who will advance to the semi-finals. The first five editions were hosted at Milan’s Allianz Cloud Arena (previously known as the PalaLido), before switching to the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah.
Following on from its conception eight years ago, only two players have attained titles in both the Next Gen ATP Finals and the senior competition. Stefanos Tsitsipas achieved the remarkable feat of winning both tournaments within one twelve-month cycle, while Jannik Sinner took five years to upgrade his Under-21 crown to the real deal.
Given the ongoing development of the Next Gen series and the increasing presence of prodigious youngsters at the top end of the ATP rankings, expect more players to follow in the footsteps of Tsitsipas and Sinner.
Singles – Champions
Here’s a list of year-end championship singles winners, commencing from the advent of the Tennis Masters Cup in 2000:
2024: Jannik Sinner
2023: Novak Djokovic
2022: Novak Djokovic
2021: Alexander Zverev
2020: Daniil Medvedev
2019: Stefanos Tsitsipas
2018: Alexander Zverev
2017: Grigor Dimitrov
2016: Andy Murray
2015: Novak Djokovic
2014: Novak Djokovic
2013: Novak Djokovic
2012: Novak Djokovic
2011: Roger Federer
2010: Roger Federer
2009: Nikolay Davydenko
2008: Novak Djokovic
2007: Roger Federer
2006: Roger Federer
2005: David Nalbandian
2004: Roger Federer
2003: Roger Federer
2002: Lleyton Hewitt
2001: Lleyton Hewitt
2000: Gustavo Kuerten
Doubles – Champions
Here’s a list of year-end championship doubles winners, commencing from the advent of the Tennis Masters Cup in 2000:
2024: Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz
2023: Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury
2022: Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury
2021: Pierre-Hugues Herbert/Nicolas Mahut
2020: Wesley Koolhof/Nikola Mektić
2019: Pierre-Hugues Herbert/Nicolas Mahut
2018: Mike Bryan/Jack Sock
2017: Henri Kontinen/John Peers
2016: Henri Kontinen/John Peers
2015: Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecău
2014: Mike Bryan/Bob Bryan
2013: David Marrero/Fernando Verdasco
2012: Marcel Granollers/Marc López
2011: Max Mirnyi/Daniel Nestor
2010: Nenad Zimonjić/Daniel Nestor
2009: Mike Bryan/Bob Bryan
2008: Nenad Zimonjić/Daniel Nestor
2007: Mark Knowles/Daniel Nestor
2006: Jonas Björkman/Max Mirnyi
2005: Michaël Llodra/Fabrice Santoro
2004: Mike Bryan/Bob Bryan
2003: Mike Bryan/Bob Bryan
2002: Tournament cancelled*
2001: Ellis Ferreira/Rick Leach
2000: Donald Johnson/Piet Norval
* A separate one-off event was held at the conclusion of the 2002 campaign, referred to as the ATP Doubles World Championships. The Tennis Masters Cup welcomed back doubles teams in 2003, having only staged a singles competition a year prior.