Turin's Round Robin Puts 1,500 Ranking Points on One Week

Every other big event in tennis can end your week in one bad hour. The ATP Finals can't. The season-ending championship, played November 15-22 at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, takes the year's top eight players and drops them into two groups of four — and everyone is guaranteed three matches before the knockout rounds even begin.

The groups carry names from the sport's furniture. The John McEnroe Group holds top seed Alexander Zverev, Ben Shelton, Arthur Fils and Rafael Jódar. The Ivan Lendl Group holds Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli and Frances Tiafoe. Each man plays the other three in his group, and the top two from each side advance to the semifinals.

Ties are where the format gets honest. Standings run first on wins, then head-to-head records, then percentages of sets and games won. A player can lose a match and still lift the trophy — it's happened — which means every game in a dead rubber can matter to someone else's season. There are no free afternoons in Turin.

The points explain the intensity. An undefeated champion takes home 1,500 ranking points, more than a Grand Slam semifinal and not far off a Masters 1000 title and a half. The money matches it: Jannik Sinner's winner's payout in 2025 was a record $5,071,000, the richest single week in the sport.

The field itself is the other half of the appeal. Four of this year's eight — Cobolli, Fils, Tiafoe and Jódar — are debutants, and Jódar is the first player in the tournament's history to qualify in his first season on the main tour. With Sinner, the two-time defending champion, absent through a knee injury, the title is genuinely open for the first time in three years.

The McEnroe Group rewards a closer look. Zverev finished the race with 9,350 points, nearly double third-placed Shelton's 5,170, and he beat Jódar in the French Open quarterfinals this year. Fils, the sixth seed, is the group's unknown — a debutant with nothing banked and nothing to protect. In a round robin, that combination makes the group's favorite earn every set.

The Lendl Group is tighter. Alcaraz banked 6,100 race points as the clear No. 2, but Daniil Medvedev (3,820), Flavio Cobolli (3,680) and Frances Tiafoe (3,390) finished the race within 430 points of each other. Medvedev is the group's veteran of this event; Cobolli and Tiafoe are debutants who'll treat every match like a final, because in the standings math, a debutant's upset can eliminate a favorite before the semifinals exist.

Recent history says the format favors the patient. Sinner won the last two editions, in 2024 and 2025, edging Alcaraz in last year's final — and his withdrawal this year removes the one player who'd turned Turin into a fortress. The trophy, the 1,500 points and a winner's check in the neighborhood of last year's record payout are all genuinely available to whichever of the eight manages his week best: peak too early and the round robin punishes you; start too slowly and the sets-percentage tiebreakers bury you.

The race table tells you how each man got here and what he brings. Zverev's 9,350 points tower over the field. Alcaraz (6,100) and Shelton (5,170) form the chasing tier. Then comes the compressed middle: Medvedev at 3,820, Cobolli at 3,680, Fils at 3,625 and Tiafoe at 3,390 — four players separated by 430 points, all of whom spent the autumn trading the last qualifying places week to week. Jódar's 3,234 closed the field, 64 points ahead of de Minaur, the first man out.

That compression is the format's gift. In a straight knockout draw, the middle four might get one match each. In Turin they get three, against each other and against the favorites, with the tiebreakers keeping every set alive. By Friday night, the semifinals will feature the four players who managed the week best — not necessarily the four who played the single best match. That's the difference the round robin makes, and it's why this odd, demanding format has kept its place at the top of the calendar.

Alternates Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz wait on site in case the field opens up. Turin has hosted since 2021 and holds the event through 2028, with Nitto's title sponsorship extended through 2030. Novak Djokovic's record of seven singles titles won't be touched this year. Almost everything else about the week is up for grabs.