By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday, November 10, 2022

Even though he has been forced to pull out of this year’s Nitto ATP Finals due to an abdominal injury, Carlos Alcaraz is still in the driver’s seat when it comes to finishing the season at No.1 in the rankings.



Alcaraz, bidding to become the 18th player to ever hold the ATP’s year-end No.1 ranking, and the first not named Djokovic (7), Nadal (5), Federer (5) or Murray (1) since 2003 (Andy Roddick), can only sit and watch as two players take a crack at pushing through to the top in Turin.

Rafael Nadal, currently 1,000 points behind Alcaraz, can get to No.1 by winning the title. If he doesn’t win the title, he can still climb to No.1 provided that Stefanos Tsitsipas doesn’t win the title, and Nadal reaches the final while going 3-0 in round robin play.

Tsitsipas, 1,470 points behind Alcaraz at the moment, must win the title undefeated in order to reach No.1.

The Groups have been selected in Turin and they shape up as follows.

Green Group

(1) Rafael Nadal
(3) Casper Ruud
(5) Felix Auger-Aliassime
(8) Taylor Fritz (8)

Red Group

(2) Stefanos Tsitsipas
(4) Daniil Medvedev
(6) Andrey Rublev
(7) Novak Djokovic

Play begins on November 13 (Sunday) in Turin.