It was in the air, implicitly announced with the package in Bercy and with the postcards from the Maldives, where Nole Djokovic was on holiday with his family, not exactly the most suitable location for training in view of the ATP Finals.
A renunciation made even more probable by the deafening silence of the last few days, in stark contrast to the thunderous arrival of Jannik Sinner in Turin. And in the end today with an Instagram story that talks about a “permanent injury” the Serbian champion made his resignation from the Turin event officialwhere he was the reigning champion, with a victory in the final over Jannik Sinner that we all remember. An event which, as he himself (now number 5 in the ATP ranking) had said in mid-September, no longer represented “an objective” but which now, due to non-participation, risks taking him out of the top 10 of the ATP ranking for the first time since 2018.
The withdrawal of Djokovic, who was at number 6 in the Race, brings order to the list of qualifiers for the Finals taking place from 10 to 17 November: the last three qualifiers are Casper Ruud, Alex De Minaur (in his first appearance at the ATP Finals) e Andrey Rublevnow involved in the ATP 250 tournaments in Metz and Belgrade. They are added to the already very certain ones Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz. When he withdrew in France Nole was in sixth place in the Race but with very few points more than his three pursuers Rublev, Ruud and De Minaur, and probably thought that with the points of the three in the field, he would naturally exit the race towards Turin , but this was not the case.
His last appearance dates back to mid-October at the Six King Slam in Riyadh, the very rich and somewhat rude performance where he placed third and pocketed 1.5 million euros. The last official tournament was the Master 1000 in Shanghai, beaten in the final by Sinner. And now, to see the 37-year-old no longer such a highlander back on the court, we will most likely have to wait for the Australian Open, the first Slam of next year, probably the real reason for giving up the ATP Finals.
