ATP Finals Preview: The Great Eight Vie for Glory in London

The ATP World Tour Finals are right around the corner with the opening matches set to take place Sunday from London. The world’s top eight singles players will battle in the year-end event as a mix of young and old make for an intriguing field.

With Rafael Nadal withdrawing from the event to have an appendectomy, it opened up one more spot in the draw, which was taken by Milos Raonic.

What makes the ATP Finals interesting is the different tournament format it has compared to the tournaments on the tour. From the onset, you play an elite-level player rather than a qualifier or wild card, but a loss doesn’t necessarily eliminate you, like it would in a Grand Slam.

Two players will come out of each group after the round-robin stage and reach the semifinals. From there, it becomes just like any other tournament, with the winners advancing.

Below are the eight players in the field and how they fared individually in 2014, as well as some predictions for who will come out of each group and who will eventually be crowned champion.

Novak Djokovic
The number one-ranked player in the world enters London with a newfound energy. His wife Jelena gave birth to the couple’s first child back in October. The Serb won his first tournament since becoming a father in Paris last week, having never dropped a set en route to the BNP Paribas Masters title. It gave him a little breathing room in front of Roger Federer for the number one ranking, but he will still need to take care of business in London in order to maintain the top spot.

He is a two-time defending champion in London, and has won three ATP World Tour Finals in his career. Djokovic posted a match record of 57-8 in 2014 which resulted in six titles. He defeated Federer in the Wimbledon finals this summer in what was one of the best, if not the best, match of the year.

“I’m excited to be there, because I think it’s one of the most spectacular tennis venues that we have,” said Djokovic. “The people in London love tennis and have appreciation for this sport. So I look forward to that.”

Djokovic carries a 27-match win streak indoors into London, and will head up Group A.

He opens up against 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic.

Roger Federer
Roger Federer enjoyed a resurgent 2014 campaign following a disappointing 2013 that saw him win just one title. His poor play last year led many to believe that the legendary career of the Swiss might have hit its descent, but he quickly put an end to those theories with an excellent year.

Despite not winning a single Grand Slam in 2014, he reached the semifinals in three of the four majors. His epic showdown with Djokovic in the Wimbledon heat over the summer reinforced the notion that Federer still had something left in his tank. After Wimbledon, the Swiss won titles in Cincinnati, Shanghai and Basel. His victory over Djokovic in the Shanghai semis shrunk the gap between the two for world number one.

Federer has made a number of adjustments to his game following his disappointing 2013 season, with the biggest being the addition of former Grand Slam champion Stefan Edberg to his coaching staff. Under Edberg, Federer has used his forehand more and has been much more aggressive at the net, thus padding the “W” column.

Despite not winning a Grand Slam this season, Federer has moved up six spots in the rankings since he dropped to eighth in early March, illustrating how consistently good he has been throughout 2014.

He has won the ATP World Tour Finals six times in his career, and look for the 33-year old to punch his ticket to the final four.

Stan Wawrinka
While it may seem like years ago now, Stan Wawrinka won his first major title in 2014, winning his maiden Grand Slam at the Australian Open this past January by defeating Rafael Nadal. Since then, Wawrinka has enjoyed a very nice 2014 campaign. He enters with a match record of 35-14 and has added two more titles since capturing the first Grand Slam of the season Down Under.

Wawrinka’s win at the Australian Open seemed to loosen up the grip on Grand Slams held by the Big Four. Prior to Wawrinka’s win in Sydney, a member of the Big Four (Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray) had won every Grand Slam since Juan Martin del Potro upset Federer in the finals of the 2009 U.S. Open. Before del Potro’s victory, the Big Four had won 18 straight Grand Slams.

Many people will look to next week’s tournament in London as a barometer for Wawrinka. His Grand Slam win led some to believe the Big Four was no more, and that the Swiss might be part of a Big Five. However, the 29-year old has struggled in the events since, and enters the ATP Finals with losses in four of his last five matches. He begins his round-robin play against the Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych on Monday.

Marin Cilic
The tournament in London is the perfect opportunity for Marin Cilic to prove that his championship run at the 2014 U.S. Open was no one-hit wonder. The 6’10’’ Croatian won his first major title in Queens back in September by defeating fellow London competitor Kei Nishikori, a year after he was barred from the tournament due to a nine-month suspension for a doping violation.

The 26-year-old Cilic finally put together what many people saw from him for years. The Croatian used a powerful serve and showed remarkable baseline-to-baseline defense during his run in Flushing Meadows. He beat three other London competitors on his way to the title in Berdych, Federer and Nishikori.

He has just won one title since his championship in Queens, the Kremlin Cup in mid-October. He withdrew from the Paris tournament last week, and enters London a bit rusty. The Croat will need to regain the form that took him to the pinnacle in Flushing Meadows, and will need to do it quickly as he opens up his round-robin play with Djokovic in Group A.

Andy Murray
Andy Murray may be the hottest player heading into the London championships. The Scot needed an excellent final month-plus to qualify, and he did just that, winning three tournaments in the last six weeks to earn a spot in the final eight.

He was ranked as low as 12th back in mid-September and was in serious jeopardy of missing out on the London tournament. It was his lowest spot in the rankings since May 2008. From there, Murray has strung together a fabulous two months of tennis, starting with a title at the Shenzhen Open in China. A week later, he reached the semis in Shanghai, before falling to Djokovic.

Murray won two more titles in October, in Vienna and in Valencia, before losing to Djokovic in the Paris quarterfinals. Since the U.S. Open, the 27-year-old has lost just three matches, two of which came at the hands of the world’s number one player. Fortunately for Murray, he is not in the Serb’s round-robin group, and therefore, wouldn’t have to play him until the semifinals if he were to advance.

The biggest showdown of the round-robin stage may come when he duels with Federer as the two have split their 22 previous meetings. He will play his first singles match of the tournament when he battles Nishikori on Sunday night.

Kei Nishikori
The breakout season for Kei Nishikori has landed him in the ATP Finals, becoming the first Asian player ever to do so. Ranked as low as 21st this year, the 24-year-old from Japan put together an excellent summer that saw him reach the U.S. Open finals before running out of steam against Cilic.

Nishikori won four titles in 2014, the most recent coming last month in Tokyo, beating out Milos Raonic in the finals. He went 52-12 on the season, and became a fan favorite to many because of his hard work on the court and fantastic defensive ability.

On his run to the U.S. Open finals, he put on a clinic on how to defend a powerful serve in his epic five-set fourth-round match with Raonic. He fought off 35 aces from the Canadian in that match, and managed to take 33 percent of his return points, neutralizing a monstrous serve.

The biggest detriment to Nishikori’s season was dealing with injuries, as back and foot problems kept him out of some events. He battled through some of those ailments in the final month-plus of the season in order to qualify for this tournament. If healthy and on his game, Nishikori could give some of the top seeds fits in the early rounds.

Milos Raonic
Milos Raonic became the first Canadian man ever to qualify for the ATP Year-End Finals, as both he and Eugenie Bouchard took Canadian tennis to a new level this season. The 23-year-old was the last player to qualify for London, needing a finals appearance in Paris to land a spot in London, which he earned by beating Federer in the quarterfinals and Berdych in the semifinals.

Raonic enjoyed the best season of his career, posting a match record of 49-18 on his way to a title in Washington earlier this summer.

The youngest player in the field of eight, Raonic is still the rawest. He has a powerful serve that can win him service game after service game, but it is the rest of his game that needs to be polished. He made great strides in his overall game in 2014, and will see how he measures up against the world’s elite next week.

Raonic went 4-9 against the rest of the London field this year.

Tomas Berdych
Making his fifth consecutive appearance in the ATP Finals, Tomas Berdych used another consistent season to maintain his spot in the top 10. He reached three Grand Slam quarterfinals this season, including a semifinal appearance at the Australian Open before losing to eventual champion Wawrinka.

He posted a 54-20 match record on his way to two titles, the most recent coming in Stockholm last month. Berdych reached the semifinals of this event back in 2011, and will need to escape a tough draw in order to do so this year. He is 12-29 in his career against the three other players in his group, including a dismal 2-16 mark against Djokovic.

The 29-year-old Berdych is a veteran and knows how to prepare for a tournament that sees you play elite player after elite player. His first test will come against Wawrinka, whom he is 5-9 against in his career. 

Predictions
►Group A: Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych

►Group B: Roger Federer and Andy Murray

►Finals: Novak Djokovic over Andy Murray