daniel chigunwe
FOR the second straight year, the world’s best eight tennis players aged 21 and under will descend on Jeddah for the ATP Next Gen Finals 2024.
The tournament, taking place between December 18 and 22, will showcase some of the hottest prospects in the sport at King Abdullah Sports City.
Here, Al Arabiya English explores everything you need to know about the ATP Next Gen Finals 2024.
What is the Next Gen Finals?
The ATP Next Gen Finals is an annual tournament showcasing the brightest young talents in men’s tennis.
Launched in 2017, the event is exclusively for players aged 21 and under who rank among the top-performing competitors on the ATP Tour.
It serves as a platform to highlight future stars of the sport, with past winners including Stefanos Tsitsipas and, most notably, current World No. 1 Jannik Sinner and four-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz, who won the tournament in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
Another former World No.1, Daniil Medvedev, also competed in the Next Gen Finals back in 2017.
Unlike traditional tournaments, the ATP Next Gen Finals are known for their innovative format. Matches are played in a best-of-five set structure, but with shorter sets that go to four games instead of six, adding a fast-paced dynamic.
Other experimental rules, such as no-ad scoring, on-court coaching, and the use of electronic line-calling without line judges, make the event a testing ground for modernising tennis.
The tournament does not award ranking points but offers a significant prize pool — US$2,050,000 in 2024 — and invaluable experience against top-tier competition, laying the foundation for exciting rivalries that may continue for many years.
Players earn their spots through year-round performances, with the season-long ‘Race to Jeddah’ rankings determining the qualifiers.
Last year’s Next Gen Finals title was won by Serbian outsider Hamad Mededovic, who became the lowest-ranked champion in tournament history at world No. 110 when he beat No. 1 seed Arthur Fils in the final.
Why is the Next Gen Finals happening in Jeddah?
The 2023 ATP Next Gen Finals marked the first time the tournament was held in Jeddah, with tennis becoming an important pillar in Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a global hub for sports and entertainment.
It was a milestone event last year as the first official professional tennis tournament to take place in the Kingdom, demonstrating a significant shift in Saudi interest in the sport.
Through multi-year hosting and sponsorship deals like the naming rights of the PIF ATP World Rankings, Saudi Arabia is having an increasing influence on the tennis landscape.
As well as the Next Gen Finals, Saudi Arabia also hosted the WTA Finals this year, with Coco Gauff claiming the season-ending crown in a thrilling finale in Riyadh in November.
The Kingdom also welcomed an epic exhibition tournament to its capital this year, the Six Kings Slam, which was won by men’s World No. 1 Jannik Sinner and featured stars like Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal, for whom it was one of the final singles appearances of his career before retirement.
Elite events like the Next Gen Finals are designed to encourage more Saudis to take up tennis and inspire youngsters to consider pursuing the sport professionally.
At a grassroots level, Saudi tennis has been rapidly expanding over the past few years under the leadership of Arij Mutabagani, with overall participation levels more than tripling since 2015.
Who is playing in the
Next Gen Finals?
The No. 1 seed is Frenchman Arthur Fils, whose world ranking of 20 makes him the favourite to follow in the footsteps of Sinner, Alcaraz and Tsitsipas, and take home the ATP Next Gen Finals crown.
Fils, who reached the Boys Singles final at the 2021 French Open, has quickly made a name for himself on the ATP Tour and finished runner-up last year in the Next Gen Finals. In 2024, Fils made it to the fourth round of Wimbledon and won two ATP 500 titles — beating No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev in the Hamburg Open final and compatriot Ugo Humbert to claim the Japan Open.
A fast-rising star, he is one of the brightest prospects in French tennis.
American Alex Michelsen broke into the top 50 for the first time last month to make him the No. 2 seed in Jeddah.
After a disappointing debut at the Next Gen Finals in 2023, Michelsen comes into the 2024 edition with significantly more experience after a breakout year.
The California-born player progressed to the third round on his debut at the Australian Open and also had maiden appearances at the French Open and Wimbledon, before making it to the second round of his home Grand Slam at Flushing Meadows for a second straight year.
He also featured in nine elite ATP Tour Masters 1000 tournaments, which included a first career meeting with Serbian legend Novok Djokovic — to whom he narrowly lost 7-6-7-6 at the Shanghai Open in October.
Talented Czech teenager Jakub Menšík uses every inch of his 6ft 4in frame to dominate opponents and he claimed big wins in 2024 against established stars like Denis Shapovalov, Andy Murray and Andrey Rublev.
Victory over Rublev at the 2024 Qatar ExxonMobil Open saw him become the youngest competitor to defeat a top-5 player since Carlos Alcaraz in 2021. Menšík also made it through to the third round of the US Open for the second successive year and in October reached his first Masters quarter-final in Shanghai.
He is ranked No. 48 in the world and No. 3 for the ATP Next Gen Finals.
The son of former Chinese national footballer Shang Yi and ex-table tennis world champion Wu Na, Shang Juncheng has elite sport in his DNA.
The former ITF Junior World No. 1 made history in 2022 when he became the youngest Chinese player to ever win a Challenger Tour trophy at the age of 17 and at the 2023 Australian Open became the youngest qualifier for the tournament since Carlos Alcaraz.
Florida-based Shang has continued to ascend since then, reaching a career-high ranking of 47 in October 2024 and becoming the No. 2 ranked Chinese men’s player.
The second of three Americans in the draw, Learner Tien is a Next Gen Finals debutant but knows about pressure tournaments having played in two Junior Grand Slam finals in 2023 – the Australian Open and the US Open.
In 2022 he made his US Open main draw debut as a wildcard at the age of just 16, making him the youngest American player to appear at Flushing Meadows in almost two decades.
Tien has won three Challenger Tour events in successive months this year between August and October — helping him earn his spot in Jeddah.
Luca Van Assche faces another reunion with fellow Frenchman Fils, who he beat in the 2021 Junior French Open final at Roland Garros but lost to in the semi-finals of last year’s Next Gen Finals. Although the two are singles rivals, they played together at Wimbledon in 2023 — beating Greek brothers Stefanos and Petros Tsitsipas in the first round.
Born in Belgium, but raised in France, Van Assche won consecutive matches at the Australian Open this year, stunning 25th seed Lorenzo Misetti in the second round before losing to former Next Gen finals champion Tsitsipas in Melbourne.
Nishesh Basavareddy made it into the Next Gen finals draw courtesy of his second Challenger Tour title of the season, with the American adding the Puerto Vallarta Open trophy to the one he won in Tiburon, California, back in September.
Basavareddy, who won the Junior US Open Doubles crown with Ozan Baris in 2022, has enjoyed an impressive 2024 — recently reaching a career high ranking of No. 139.
The 19-year-old has been given a wildcard spot at the 2025 Australian Open for his Grand Slam debut.
The eighth and final competitor in Jeddah is João Fonseca who, in 2023, became Brazil’s first Junior World No. 1 as he hit the top of the ITF Rankings.
It was a year that saw him beat fellow 2024 Next Gen Finals participant Tien in the US Open Boys Singles final and make his ATP Tour debut at the Rio Open.
He returned to his hometown tournament again in 2024, reaching the quarter-finals and deciding to turn pro soon after — foregoing the opportunity to play college tennis for the University of Virginia. — english.alarabiya
Bongani Ndlovu