Tennis, 2025 ATP Finals: Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz battle for year

All roads lead to Turin to conclude the men’s tennis season at the 2025 ATP Finals (9-16 November).

The year-end tournament takes place in the Italian city for the fifth consecutive year, with everything still to play for in deciding who will end the season as No. 1 in both singles and doubles.

Eight singles players and eight doubles pairs will compete at the Inalpi Arena, where Jannik Sinner returns as the defending champion in front of his home crowd. The fight is on to retain his title and No. 1 ranking ahead of top challenger Carlos Alcaraz, who will begin in Turin as the top-ranked player.

In the doubles draw, Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz are the reigning champions from 2024, when they became the first and only German team to win the title. This year’s top seeds are Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool, who in July became the first British pair to win the Wimbledon men’s doubles title in 89 years.

With a maximum of 1,500 ranking points on offer and a total prize pot of USD $5.071m, there is everything to play for at the season finale. Who will cap off the 2025 season in style with the elusive piece of silverware?

Here is all you need to know about the ATP Finals.

Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and the race for year-end World No. 1 - who is in line to take top spot?

2025 WTA Finals: Full schedule, all results, scores and standings – complete list

2025 ATP Finals – Sinner and Alcaraz face off for supremacy, and will Djokovic play in Turin?

This season’s headlines in men’s tennis have been dominated by the duopoly of Sinner and Alcaraz, each pushing the other to become their best versions on the court. Every Grand Slam men’s singles title for the past two years has been adorned by either the Italian or Spanish flag.

They exchanged the world No. 1 spot after the US Open final, which went Alcaraz’s way at Flushing Meadows. But after his early exit at the Paris Masters, eventual champion Sinner has returned to the top – for this week, at least.

Italy’s home hope drops the points from the 2024 finals in the ATP rankings, meaning that he must repeat his feat of an unbeaten title run to have any hope of ending this year on top. Meanwhile, Alcaraz knows that winning all three group matches or reaching the final will be enough to end the year as No. 1.

Who else can challenge the dominant duo? The third seed is Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Alexander Zverev, though the 2021 ATP Finals champion has half as many ranking points as the top two and no title since April.

Novak Djokovic qualified for a joint-record 18th time, yet he has been ambiguous about whether he will compete at the year-end finals. Last year, the Olympic champion withdrew five days before the start of the 2024 edition, so whether he will go for a shot at a record-extending eighth triumph is uncertain.

Elsewhere, the USA has double representation in Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton, the first time two U.S. singles players have qualified since 2006. Australia’s Alex de Minaur is showing his consistency with a second consecutive appearance in Turin.

The eighth and final spot will be decided in the last week before the Finals, between the men who contested the Paris 2024 singles bronze medal match. Eventual bronze medallist Lorenzo Musetti will qualify if he wins the Athens ATP 250 tournament, while anything short of victory sends mixed doubles bronze medallist Félix Auger-Aliassime to Turin in singles.

2025 ATP Finals – how does it work?

The eight players are divided into two groups of four, where they will play three best-of-three-set matches in the group stage.

Doubles matches are played with two sets (no ad) and a match tiebreak. Each round-robin win is worth three points, as the top two progress from each group to the semi-finals.

If players are level on points, whoever won the match between the players in question will have the advantage in the standings. Should there be a three-way tie, the order is determined by the following tiebreakers, in order: matches played, total set percentage won, and total game percentage won, ATP rankings position.

The semi-finals are straight knockout matches through to the finals on 8 November, where the kings of men’s tennis for 2025 will be crowned.

Players will earn 200 ATP ranking points for a group stage win, 400 points if they triumph in the semi-final, and winning the final. That means a maximum of 1,500 points is on offer for any player who can win five out of five matches.

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