Final tournaments of 2024

Couple of months to go and Sinner likely to end the year at number one.

Bit closer in the women's with Sabalenka hunting down Swiatek at the top.

Davis Cup going on at the moment. Britain won 2-1 in Manchester against Finland, with Billy Harris, who has come from nowhere this season, getting a maiden DC win. Sterner challenges await GB over the weekend in the form of Argentina and Canada. Draper didn't play v Finland so may now feature.

GB were knocked out of the DC, with Draper losing both his matches and complaining of fatigue.

Been a strange summer which won't happen again for many years. The problem was the Olympics which saw those who wished to play in it switching back to clay and then having to adjust to hard courts for the USO.

First, the Olympics won't happen again until 2028 and secondly, it will be in LA with players moving seamlessly on to the US hard-court swing followed by the USO.

Today has seen that rarity - a British women's win in a main tour event. Sonay Kartal won a 250pt tourney in Monastir, Tunisia. A qualifier ranked 151, Kartal will now be on the verge of the top 100.

Asian swing in full, er, swing at the moment.

It's thrown up a bit of history in that Marin Cilic, ranked around 700-something, became the lowest ranked player in the Open Era to win a tournament.

At the end of a long year, not helped by the Paris staging of the Olympics, one or two players are dropping out of tourneys. Alcaraz, for one, has spoken of the heavy schedule

Jack Draper has had an excellent straight-sets win today over Hurkacz in Tokyo. Draper is up to 20th in the world and you have to feel he can go even higher.

Fatigue as much as form is hitting the top players. Five seeds are already out in Tokyo so this is a great chance for Draper.

Sinner may not be off the hook after all. WADA, the doping body, have referred his drug thing to a higher authority (God?) and are calling for a one-to-two-year ban.

The uncertainty doesn't seem to have affected Sinner's form as he's made the final in Beijing where he will face Alcaraz.

All the seeds were eventually knocked out in Tokyo where the title went to Fils of France.

Alcaraz and Sinner have just fought out a 3hr+ plus final in Beijing with Alcaraz coming out on top after a final-et tiebreak.

The Spaniard was a break up in both the first and third sets only to be pegged back to tiebreaks.

Sinner took the first-set tiebreak and then the match, from looking at the stats, appeared to hinge on a mammoth eight-deuce game towards the end of the second set. Sinner had two BPs in this game but Carlos held on, broke and then held again to level the match.

The topsy-turvy nature of the match continued in the final set with Alcaraz going 4-2 up only for Sinner to get it back on serve. It seemed the Italian would triumph when he went 3-0 up in the tiebreak. But Alcaraz, remarkably, took SEVEN points in a row to take the title.

While we await the (final?) outcome of the Sinner drug controversy, it's worth noting that Simona Halep who started playing after her ban was shortened and then got injured is playing again.

She won her first match in a minor tourney but was well beaten today. Say what you like about the Sinner situation, at least Halep had to contend with being out of the game and suspended for long periods after her drug thingy.

It could well be that Sinner will, after all, be suspended now. Whether it will be as long as two years which WADA's worst-case scenario prefers, remains to be seen. I know some of the players think Sinner, as number one, has been fortunate to have been dealt with so leniently; at least so far.

Sinner, Alcaraz and company are at it again in Shanghai. Sinner has beaten Shelton today and Medvedev has taken out Tsitsipas. All the 4th round men are in action today, with only Rublev of the top guys having failed to reach this stage.

The women seem to having the sort of coach problems normally associated with a National Express breakdown on the M25. Rybakina has parted with hers, Gauff has bid Brad Gilbert goodbye and now Swiatek has switched to ditching mood.

And in breaking news, Nadal has announced his retirement at the end of the season. Not a huge surprise given how much he's struggled to be fit enough to be on the court over the last coule of years.

Some warm and heartfelt tributes to Nadal now he's finally hanging up his racquet and packing away his water bottles.

Clearly he's been one of the greats and his RG record appears unassailable. As with Rog and Novak, Rafa would have won even more Slams if the other two hadn't been around.

Rafa will leave great memories but perhaps the greatest will be his fighting spirit. This was a guy who even a break or two up in a set would battle like mad in a service game when trailing 40-0. There were no easy points when facing the Spaniard.

His battles with Djoko were epic but most will, in future years, recall the amazing clashes with Rog, particularly the 08 final at Wimbledon * which, with the roof now on, will remain the last great fading-light finish.

*Lady Perry was there.

It's clear the era of the GOATs is coming to an end - Federer gone, Nadal going and even Djokovic starting to show signs of fading. I've seen the suggestions that each would have won far more GS titles if their careers didn't overlap, but I'm not convinced - I think that they drove each other on to ever higher heights and helped with the longevity of each. None of the retiring at 26 because of burn out like Borg.

As for Rafa, I was always more a fan of Federer, but there's no doubt Nadal maximised his skills and athletic ability plus a competitive fire that I can only really think of Leyton Hewitt and before that Jimmy Connors as coming close to.
Can't think of many cases where a player in any sport was so well matched to the playing conditions at a venue as peak Rafa at Roland Garros (maybe peak Jack Nicklaus at Augusta or Tom Watson on a Links gold course comes close) - while he was obviously the king of clay throughout his career, he was less dominant on either the really slow courts or where thinner air made the ball fly faster. Paris just seemed to be the perfect court for him - slow enough that he was virtually impossible to hit through, but fast enough that he got value for the big forehand.

And by most accounts he is one of the nicest people around away from the court.

I was always a huge Federer fan but what would people say were the greatest performances of Nadal's career?

His complete and utter destruction of a slightly off-colour Fed at RG 2008 must be up there.

Of course Wimbledon 2008 will be the most frequently cited match particularly by British media, but I think in terms of shot-making Australia 2009 a few months later was even better. I never get tired of rewatching its highlight reel. It just lacked a bit of 5th set drama.

Obviously the other enduring rivalry of his career was vs Djokovic, I distinctly remember his triumph over Novak at USO 2013 in 4 sets as a really strong Nadal, considering the Serb probably had the upper hand at the time away from clay, but Rafa had adapted parts of his game like his serve and his down the line forehand to counter Djokovic and re-emerge victorious.

Some of the other defining matches of his career include a dramatic 5 set win over Djokovic in a semi final RG 2013, and that absolute marathon final at AO2012. I think some of us found that particular final a bit too much of a baseline grind but all the same I've never seen a match quite like it since. Even though Novak eventually won, it was so brutal I think it affected him for a couple of years.

To echo a previous comment it's staggering to think how many slams any of the Big 3 could have won if they weren't kept in check by the other two. But at Roland Garros, that didn't even apply - where when Nadal was 100% fit was as close to invincible as you can get.

While the Nadal tributes continue, Shanghai goes on, with Sinner still in it but Alcaraz out - beaten by fast-rising Machac.

Anther up-and-coming payer, 19-yr-old Mensik of Czech Rep, took Djoko all the way before succumbing in one of the quarters. Novak now plays Fritz.

Incidentally it's good to see Goffin doing well again. Injury and form dumped him quite far down the rankings but he's worked his way up (often via the qualifying route) and he beat Zverev to make the quarters in Shanghai before losing to Fritz.

There's a blockbuster semi in the women's in Wuhan, with Gauff taking on Sabalenka who is battling Swiatek for the year-end number one.

Sinner's win today means he's clinched the year-end number one spot well ahead of time.

Of course, his drug case is still pending and there's a chance he'll get a suspension. Drug body WADA are calling for a 1-2 year ban.

Sinner will play Djoko in the Shanghai final after Novak moved to a 10-0 h-to-h with Taylor Fritz.

Sinner's 7-6, 6-3 win in the final v Djoko gives the Italian a seventh title of the season and further cements his numero uno status.

According to the stats I've seen Djoko did not force a single BP in a match that appears to be dominated by the serve.

So Novak's wait for a 100th title goes on. You would expect him to get it sooner rather than later. But as long as he has to meet either Sinner or Alcatraz the century may not come up that easily.

I don't say this often but Djokovic has been cheated out of number 100, fully expect it to awarded to him in due time.

For the women, Sabalenka retained her Wuhan title - stating to impose a dominance there not seen since prime Rafa at RG. However, was rather gifted her semi final win by Gauff serving 21 doubles over 3 sets, with 9 in each of the 2nd and 3rd sets that she lost. Gauff was 6-1 4-2 up and then started serving like me on a good day.