Firstpost Explains: Rules and format of ATP World Tour and Next Gen Finals ahead of season-ending tournaments

The ATP Next Gen finals and the ATP World Tour Finals mark the end of another thrilling year of men’s tennis. After 10 gruelling months of top tennis action, we have the top eight men’s players and top eight U-21 players battling it out for Tour title. Unlike the Grand Slams and other tournaments on the Tour, both the Finals deploy different formats and rules for the year-ender ornaments. Ahead of the 2018 ATP World Tour Finals and 2018 Next Gen Finals, Firstpost explains the rules and the format of the tournaments.

Qualification

The ATP Next Gen Finals and the ATP World Tour Finals have a round-robin format, with eight players divided into two groups of four. The eight seeds are decided by the ATP rankings on the Monday before the Finals begin. If a player withdraws through injury, the next best-ranked player qualifies for the Finals.

For the Next Gen finals, the top seven players in the ATP Race to Milan rankings qualify for the tournament with the eighth spot reserved for the winner of a qualifying tournament. All singles matches are the best of five sets, with each set the first to four games (not six games).

Format

The first and second seeded players are drawn in groups A and B. The rest of the players are then drawn into the two groups. Each player plays the three other players in his group. The top two players with the most wins in their group, qualify for the semi-finals. In case of a two-way tie between players, the player with the better head-to-head record finishes ahead. In three-way ties, the tie is broken first by percentage of sets won, then percentage of games won and then head-to-head records. If the tie is still not broken, then the higher-ranked player in the ATP rankings wins. Theoretically, it is possible for a player to qualify for the semi-finals despite losing their first two group matches but it has never been done.

Rules

While the World Tour finals follow the normal rules, since its conception in 2017, the ATP Next Gen finals has been used by the ATP to test new rules and innovations. The Next Gen finals see players battle it out in best-of-five sets matches with the first to reach four games winning the set. The Next Gen also employs the No-Ad rule, meaning the player to win the point at 40-40 wins the game. The Milan finals also use the 25-second shot clock to ensure there is no time wasting. Also in the rules is the no lets rule which would mean if a players’ serve touches the net and lands in the service box, point won’t be repeated.

In terms of innovation, the Next Gen finals introduced the hawk-eye live in place of line umpires. This aims to reduce the human error in umpiring and leaves no room for complaints from the players. The 2017 Finals also saw players receive on-court coaching via headsets.

For the 2018 edition, the ATP has introduced three changes to the tournament. Firstly, the warm up time allocated to players before the match has been reduced to four minutes. The ATP has introduced the video review system for the first time. This will allow players to analyse calls made by the chair umpire. These calls include double bounces, foul shots, touches — when the ball skims off the player’s racquet (similar to a batsman getting a slight edge in cricket) and invasion, where the player or anything he is wearing makes contact with the opponent ‘s side of the court while the ball is in play.

The reliance on ball kids to handle the player’s towels was a major point of contention in 2018 with a lot of players coming under fire for their mistreatment of ball kids. The ATP Next Gen Finals organizers have introduced towel racks to put the onus on the players between points and also to look after the hygiene of the ball kids handling the players’ sweat-laden towels.