There are only four players inside the Top 20 of the ATP Rankings who have finished each of the past 10 years inside the Top 20. The first three are the Big Three of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. The fourth: American John Isner, who ends 2019 at World No. 19 even after missing three months due to a broken foot.

“I’m very proud of that. That’s something that if you would have told me that when I first turned pro I would have laughed in your face. I would have laughed in your face if you would have told me I’d finish in the Top 20 just one year,” Isner told ATPTour.com. “But the fact that I’ve now done it 10 years in a row certainly speaks to a high level of consistency and it just takes a lot of time and dedication.”

Isner first cracked the Top 20 on 1 March 2010, and he has not dropped from the Top 25 since August 2011.

“I think the most important part throughout those 10 years is I’ve been able to stay very healthy. That’s probably one of the main reasons I’ve been able to stay in the Top 20 for so long,” Isner said. “I’m definitely proud of it. I think I have earned it. I’ve worked very hard to keep myself in tip-top shape and always try to reinvent my game a little bit and just try to stay ahead of the curve as much as I possibly can. To be able to do that at a nice even number like 10 years in a row is definitely something I can hang my hat on.”

It’s been an adventurous year for the 34-year-old. On 15 September 2018, his first child, Hunter Grace, was born. Isner made his second consecutive Miami Open presented by Itau final this March, but broke his left foot in the championship match against Roger Federer. After missing three months, Isner returned and won his 15th ATP Tour title in Newport.

He also found out that his wife was expecting a second child, and John Hobbs was born on 20 October. Isner then guaranteed his year-end Top 20 streak would move to 10 straight seasons.

“It has been a wild year. It’s been very busy. This year raising our daughter, finding out that Maddy was pregnant again. And of course trying to juggle my tennis career in between all of that as well. It has been very busy, there’s no doubt about that, but I wouldn’t change it for anything,” Isner said. “Busy is definitely a good thing, and I think both myself, and my team and especially my wife have handled it extremely well. We’re so blessed to have this great family right now and now the focus is on maybe my wife not being pregnant for a little bit, raising our two little kids and me finding some time to practise in between all of that as well.”

Isner will begin his 2020 season at the inaugural ATP Cup, leading Team United States in Group D, which will be contested in Perth.

“It’s very interesting. This is of course a brand new event and one that I think a lot of players are excited about, myself in particular. I think I’m going to have a nice little off-season, spending a lot of my time in Dallas, being able to focus on my family, but also focus on myself and keeping myself in good shape, and trying to stay sharp on the tennis side of things as well,” Isner said. “I’m looking forward to that event and I think it’s a very good thing. It’s guaranteed matches. The past three, four years I’ve sort of stumbled in Australia. It sort of takes me a long time to get going and feel good about my game, so I’m very much looking forward to the ATP Cup.”

Did You Know?
Despite missing three months, Isner still earned 30 wins for the 10th straight year.

The 2019 Nitto ATP Finals, held for an 11th consecutive year at The O2 in London, provided a thrilling finale to the 2019 ATP Tour season, bringing attendance across the 63 ATP events throughout the year to a record 4.82 million fans, while online consumption of the season finale hit unprecedented heights.

21-year-old Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated Austria’s Dominic Thiem in a memorable singles final, 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-6(4), to complete a remarkable week of matches at The O2. It was only the third time in the history of the tournament (since 1970) that the singles championship match came down to a final set tie-break (1988, Becker d. Lendl; 2005, Nalbandian d. Federer).

Tsitsipas, who had won the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan just one year earlier, captured the biggest title of his career, as well 1300 ATP Rankings points and US$2,656,000 in prize money. At just 21 years, 3 months, the Greek became the youngest champion since 20-year-old Hewitt in 2001, and 6th-youngest champion in tournament history.

In doubles, the French pairing of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut captured the season-ending title for the first time in their careers, defeating Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus, 6-3, 6-4.

The season finale attracted 242,883 fans to The O2 across the eight days of competition, bringing the tournament’s cumulative attendance since 2009 to 2,803,967. This year’s attendance at The O2 elevated the attendance across the ATP Tour’s 63 events in 2019 to more than 4.82 million fans, an all-time record. The previous highest attendance had been set in 2017 (4.57 million).

The 2019 Nitto ATP Finals also attracted record audiences online, as the tournament generated unprecedented levels of fan engagement across social and digital media platforms. The event received almost 400m impressions on tournament related content – a 97% increase on 2018. And with 12.4m interactions generated across ATP and Tennis TV social media platforms, the 2019 event became the best performing ATP Tour tournament on social, a 145% increase on the previous year. Tennis TV received 41.24 million video views on social media throughout the tournament, taking the platform’s total views on social media in 2019 to more than 1 billion.

Away from the match action, the ATP’s new ATP Tour app was successfully launched, while a five-year renewal of the Tour’s premier partnership with Emirates was also announced.

The ATP’s crown jewel event is to be held at The O2 in London for a 12th consecutive and final time in 2020, before moving to Turin, Italy, in 2021. Fans are able to purchase pre-sale tickets for the 2020 Nitto ATP Finals from today, by visiting: https://www.axs.com/NittoATPFinals_presale 

BY THE NUMBERS:
•   399,112,369 – number of impressions across all ATP digital platforms (ATPTour.com, NittoATPFinals.com, live scoring apps, and social media platforms, and Tennis TV) throughout the event, a YOY increase of 97%.
•   69,110,871 – number of video plays on ATP digital media platforms, including ATPTour.com, NittoATPFinals.com, ATP & Tennis TV social media platforms, a year-on-year increase of 88%. 
•   41,240,000 – number of Tennis TV social media video views, taking the platform’s total views on social media in 2019 to more than 1 billion. 
•   12,397,163 – number or interactions (likes, comments, retweets, replies etc.) on ATP and Tennis TV social media platforms throughout the event, a year-on-year increase of 145%.
•   9,000,000 – amount of prize money (US$) on offer at the 2019 season finale.
•   6,200,000 – viewership in the UK of the BBC Breakfast programme that featured an exclusive sit-down interview with all eight singles players ahead of the season finale. The clip was also viewed on social media more than a quarter of a million times.
•   4,823,370 – number of fans that attended the 63 tournaments ATP tournaments in 2019, an all-time record.
•   2,803,964– cumulative attendance at the season-ending tournament since it moved to London in 2009.
•   2,656,000 – amount of prize money (US$) that Stefanos Tsitsipas won by capturing the title.
•   1,570,000 – number of streams on Tennis TV the ATP’s official live streaming service, with each viewer watching an average of 475 minutes each.
•   242,880 – attendance inside The O2 arena across the eight days.
•   60,000 – number of single use plastic cups removed from the waste stream through elimination of single use cups and use of tournament take-home cups.
•   3,410 – metres of string used by Tecnifibre, Official Stringers of the Nitto ATP Finals, during the tournament.
•   1,300 – ATP Rankings points won by Stefanos Tsitsipas.
•   310 – number of racquets strung by Tecnifibre during the tournament. No plastic bags were used in the delivery of newly strung racquets to players by the official tournament stringers.
•   11 – number of years the event has been held at The O2 in London. The only city to host the season finale longer is New York, which held the season finale for 13 years from 1977-1989. 
•   8 – number of different nations represented in the singles field, for the fourth consecutive year.
•   5 – number of times Nadal, Djokovic and Federer have finished the season as year-end No.1.
•   4 – number of singles players 23-and-under in the field (Tsitsipas, Zverev, Berrettini, Medvedev), the most since 2009.
•   1 – number of continents (Europe) represented in the singles field, a first in the 50-year history of the event.

Tickets to the 2020 Nitto ATP Final, to be held 15-22 November at The O2, are now on pre-sale. For a limited time, fans can take advantage of access to 2020 tickets at 2019 prices.

Buy Pre-Sale Tickets

The 2020 Nitto ATP Finals marks the 50^th anniversary of the season finale and will be the final edition held in London, concluding a successful 12-year run before it moves to Turin, Italy, in 2021.

The season finale attracted 242,883 fans to The O2 across the eight days of competition in 2019, bringing the tournament’s cumulative attendance since 2009 to 2.8 million.

Stefanos Tsitsipas capped off a memorable week at The O2 when he prevailed against Dominic Thiem 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-6(4) in the singles final – only the third time in tournament history that the championship match came down to a final set tie-break. In doubles, the French pairing of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut captured the season-ending title for the first time.

World No. 2 Novak Djokovic helped Serbia get off to an unbeaten start on Wednesday against Japan at the Davis Cup Finals in Madrid.

Djokovic beat Yoshihito Nishioka 6-1, 6-2 to clinch the win after Filip Krajinovic beat Yuichi Sugita 6-2, 6-4. In doubles, Viktor Troicki/Janko Tipsarevic gave Serbia the 3-0 win with a 7-6(5), 7-6(4) victory against Yasutaka Uchiyama/Ben McLachlan.

“It was a nervy start,” Djokovic told DavisCupFinals.com. “It took time to get used to playing on the court, to get used to the conditions and the lights. But I was pleased. Nishioka is a tricky player. I’ve never faced him before, but he’s got some of the quickest legs on the Tour.”

Andy Murray, playing in his first Davis Cup match since 2016, came back from 1/4 down in the deciding-set tie-break to help Great Britain beat the Netherlands 2-1. The Scot rallied against Tallon Griekspoor, who was competing in his second Davis Cup match ever, 6-7(7), 6-4, 7-6(5).

“I fought extremely hard at the end, but he was dictating a lot of the points. I thought he served amazing. He was going for huge second serves, and I wasn’t able to find a way to dictate the points today. I just fought hard, just tried to get one extra ball back at the end, made a great scramble at 4/3 in the tie-break and that was enough to turn it my way,” Andy Murray told DavisCupFinals.com.

Spain clinched their place in the quarter-finals as Roberto Bautista Agut and World No. 1 Rafael Nadal didn’t drop a set against Croatia. Bautista Agut, World No. 9, dismissed Nikola Mektic 6-1, 6-3, and Nadal beat Borna Gojo 6-4, 6-3.

“The start of yesterday was not perfect, but here we are. We found a way to win four matches in a row and that sent us through to the quarters, so we’re very happy,” Nadal told DavisCupFinals.com.

Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff beat Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 6-3, 7-6(8) to help the Germans earn the 3-0 sweep. Struff hit 12 aces and won 80 per cent of his first-serve points.

Philipp Kohlschreiber also won, beating Guido Pella 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, and in doubles, Nitto ATP Finals qualifiers Kevin Krawietz/Andreas Mies outlasted Leonardo Mayer/Maximo Gonzalez 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 7-6(18).

“It’s our Davis Cup debut and it was unbelievable, I have no words for this,” Krawietz told DavisCupFinals.com.