TURIN, Italy: Carlos Alcaraz will spend a nervous week watching the ATP Finals as Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas bid to usurp the Spanish teenager as year-end men’s world number one.
The top-ranked Alcaraz is powerless to stop his rivals because he is out with an abdomen injury he suffered at the Paris Masters over a week ago.
Nadal will hope he has shaken off the rustiness he displayed in Paris when he lost in his first singles match in two months after spending time at home in Mallorca with his wife and newborn son. The 36-year-old fell to American journeyman Tommy Paul.
The surest way for Nadal, who won the Australian and French Open titles in 2022 and is ranked second, to finish year-end number one for a sixth time is by winning the title in Turin.
Yet he is seemingly unconcerned about joining Pete Sampras in second on the all-time list of year end number ones.
“Like I’ve often said, it’s not a priority for me anymore, because you need a consistency of results that is really only possible for the younger players,” he told the Gazzetta dello Sport.
“And to be honest I don’t like talking about what could happen in the future.”
Nadal could also top the rankings if he wins all three of his Green Group games and reaches the final while Tsiptsipas stumbles.
The third-ranked Greek, who is in the Red Group, needs to win all his matches on his way to the title.
Nadal would topple US Open champion Alcaraz if the two Spaniards finish level on points. Nadal has a better overall record in the Grand Slams and Masters tournaments
Nadal opens his campaign on Sunday against big-serving American Taylor Fritz. His other two group rivals are Norwegian Casper Ruud and in-form Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Tsitsipas, who has never been higher than third, has a very different attitude to Nadal.
“The rankings are there for a reason. They signify something important,” he said in August when he regained third spot.
“I think that the very next step would be the No. 1 spot, which I hope I can get to one day.”
The 24-year-old has enjoyed a successful year with two titles and five other finals, though a Grand Slam title still eludes him.
Were he to succeed in finishing number one he would emulate Chilean Marcelo Rios in 1998 as the only players without a Grand Slam crown to top the rankings.
Tsitsipas’s task appears harder than Nadal’s as his group contains two former world number ones in Serbian Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev.
Another Russian the exciting mop-haired Andrey Rublev — a quarter-finalist at both the French and US Open this year — makes up that quartet.
Djokovic is hoping his rollercoaster of a year — starting with his expulsion from Australia because he was not vaccinated against Covid to the high of another Wimbledon crown — ends happily.
The 35-year-old Serb is targeting equalling the retired Roger Federer’s record of six ATP Finals titles.
It would be “a perfect ending,” Djokovic told ATP Media on Friday.
“The cherry on the cake, for sure, but it’s a long way. It’s a long week.”
“It’s the last week of the year on the Tour, it’s kind of a last sprint, if you will, for all of us.
“From the very first match you are going to have extra high intensity.”
For Ruud the finals present a chance to capture a significant title after losing both the French and US Open finals. He faces added pressure as his two grandmothers will be in Turin to watch him.
“They don’t come to too much,” Ruud told the ATP website.
“Sometimes they are a little bit frustrated with me that I don’t invite them too often.
“They are great, but as all grandmothers, they can maybe be a bit too much at times,” he added smiling.
Alcaraz powerless as Nadal and Tsitsipas eye number one spot
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Alcaraz powerless as Nadal and Tsitsipas eye number one spot
- Nadal will hope he has shaken off the rustiness he displayed in Paris when he lost in his first singles match in two months
- The third-ranked Greek, who is in the Red Group, needs to win all his matches on his way to the title
Teen soccer players lay to rest mate killed in Swiss bar fire
- Brodard is one of seven members of Lutry Football Club who died in the fire, the club said
- Five others are still fighting for their lives in hospitals
LUTRY, Switzerland: Teammates of a 16-year-old soccer player Arthur Brodard were among the mourners on Thursday as Switzerland held funerals for some of the victims of the New Year bar fire in Crans-Montana that killed 40 people, most of them teenagers.
Brodard is one of seven members of Lutry Football Club who died in the fire, the club said. Five others are still fighting for their lives in hospitals.
Under light snowfall, hundreds walked through Lutry’s cobbled streets past a large drawing of Brodard and his younger brother to the church, black umbrellas in hand, filling every pew and spilling into the aisles and doorway.
His mother, Laetitia Brodard-Sitre, carried a white teddy bear and a single red rose — his team colors.
“I want to hug you so tightly that neither of us can breathe. I love you with all my heart, Arthur,” she said, addressing her son’s coffin after singing a song in his memory.
Other class and teammates also gave eulogies, describing him as attentive, sincere, kind and thoughtful.
CLUB PAYS TRIBUTE
At the start of the ceremony, a song called “One day in the wrong place” by France’s Calogero played with the lyrics: “And it’s because they were there/One day in the wrong place.”
Brodard had reserved a table with friends on New Year’s Eve at Le Constellation bar, his mother told Reuters last week.
Just over an hour before the blaze, he texted her “Happy New Year mum. I love you” and shared a disappearing video of them partying together, she said.
His photo, showing him with tousled brown hair carrying a Yorkshire Terrier “Lili,” appeared in newspapers around the world as she sought information on his whereabouts from morgues and hospitals.
He was identified as one of the victims on January 3.
“We will now join forces to fight together, to get our heads above water, regain the initiative, and finally even the score, ball in the center,” Lutry Football Club President Stephane Bise told the congregation.
Swiss authorities said the bar in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana had not had a mandatory inspection since 2019 and questions remain about safety standards.
Swiss prosecutors are investigating the owners and victims’ families have filed legal complaints. The owners’ lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Lutry ceremony was one of two back-to-back services for teenage fire victims at the same church.
Another joint funeral for 14- and 15-year-old sisters took place in Lausanne. Schools have mobilized mental health counsellors to support students and teachers.
Twenty-one of the dead were from Switzerland, seven from France, six from Italy, and there was a Swiss-French dual national and a French-British-Israeli national. The remaining four were Romanian, Turkish, Belgian and Portuguese.
