The 2022 Nitto ATP Finals doubles champions, Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury, will return to Turin to defend their title from 12-19 November.

Ram and Salisbury have qualified as a team for the fifth consecutive year. They are guaranteed to either finish inside the Top 7 of the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, or qualify by being the highest-placed Grand Slam champions finishing the regular season between eighth and 20th.

The American-British duo won this year’s US Open, their third consecutive triumph at the season’s final major. Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler, currently 17th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, emerged victorious at the Australian Open, but cannot finish higher than Ram/Salisbury.

If Ram/Salisbury finish in the Top 7, Hijikata/Kubler will compete in Turin. If they do not, the Australians will miss out on the season finale.

Ram and Salisbury have finished their season well after an uncharacteristically slow start. All three of their 2023 titles — Lyon, the US Open and Vienna — have come since the end of May.

The five-time Nitto ATP Finals qualifiers also reached an ATP Masters 1000 final in Toronto. The defending champions own a 12-5 record at the year-end championships and did not lose a match at the Pala Alpitour last year. They also made the final in 2021.

The other teams that have already qualified are Ivan Dodig/Austin Krajicek, Wesley Koolhof/Neal Skupski and Rohan Bopanna/Matthew Ebden.

Hubert Hurkacz has continued his hot late-season form by defeating Ugo Humbert 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5) Saturday to advance to the Swiss Indoors Basel final.

The win lifted the World No. 11 Pole ahead of Taylor Fritz into ninth place in the season-long Pepperstone ATP Race To Turin, leaving him just one place behind Holger Rune and the cut for the eight-man Nitto ATP Finals.

Rune will now take the court in Basel for his semi-final against Felix Auger-Aliassime as he looks to avenge his loss to the Canadian in last year’s final.

Hurkacz chose the hard path to victory. He failed to serve out the match at 5-3 in the third set and then failed to convert two match points on Humbert’s serve in the following game. He needed a further three match points in the tie-break to clinch victory.

In the quarter-finals Hurkacz dropped 23 aces on Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor but against the left-handed Humbert he managed just eight, including one on match point. He now has 958 aces for the year as he attempts to reach 1,000 in a season for the first time.

Hurkacz, who won the Rolex Shanghai Masters title earlier this month, seeks his third title of the year, second at the ATP 500 level (Halle, 2022) and eighth overall.

Matteo Berrettini announced Saturday that he has ended his partnership with long-term coach Vincenzo Santopadre.

The 27-year-old Berrettini worked with Santopadre for 13 years. The Italian won seven tour-level titles under Santopadre’s guidance, while he rose to a career-high No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“I arrived in your “tennis arms” not yet knowing what I wanted to do of my life, you managed to make me dream far away while keeping my feet on the ground, day by day,” Berrettini wrote on Instagram.

“I don’t think I can put it down something that can really express what I feel for you. Gratitude, affection, respect, admiration, gratitude, joy and everything that is beautiful in our relationship.

“This is just a professional goodbye that probably increases our personal relationship. I’ve felt you on my side in every difficult moment faced in the last 13 years and, although there have been many hardships, I feel only joy thinking to me and you. I’m happy and grateful to the people who made us meet, and proud of us for how we have exploited this gift that has been granted to us. Without you there would have been Matteo Berrettini, but there wouldn’t have been The Hammer.”

 

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Berrettini announced on Friday he would not play again this year. The Italian has not competed since the US Open, where he retired from his second-round match with an ankle injury.

Jannik Sinner made history on Saturday when he became the first Italian man in the Open Era (since 1968) to earn 55 wins in a season, reaching the Erste Bank Open final in the process.

The 22-year-old overcame Andrey Rublev 7-5, 7-6(5) in Vienna to notch his 55th victory of 2023, surpassing Corrado Barazzutti’s 54 mark in 1978.

Sinner played front-foot tennis throughout the one-hour, 52-minute clash against Rublev. He struck 26 winners, including 10 aces, and recovered from failing to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set by raising his depth and power in the tie-break.

With his win, Sinner improved to 4-2 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series, while he ended Rublev’s 100 per cent record in tour-level semi-finals in 2023. The third seed was 6-0 before facing Sinner.

Sinner, who will compete at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin in November after qualifying earlier this month, is into his sixth final of the season and 13th overall.

The second seed will meet Daniil Medvedev in the title match as he aims to win his fourth crown of the year. Earlier this year, Sinner triumphed in Montpellier and Beijing, while he clinched his first ATP Masters 1000 crown in Toronto.

Rublev had tasted success in Vienna before, winning the title at the hard-court event in 2020. The World No. 5, who will join Sinner in Turin at the prestigious year-end event, was chasing his sixth trophy at ATP 500 level.

Daniil Medvedev earned a personal-best 64th tour-level win of the season on Saturday when he defeated long-term rival Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 7-6(6) to reach the Erste Bank Open final for the second consecutive year.

The top seed played with consistency and looked comfortable for large periods against Tsitsipas, standing deep behind the baseline to control the tempo of rallies at the ATP 500 event. Medvedev committed just 10 unforced errors and saved all three break points he faced to reach his 36th tour-level final and ninth of the season after one hour and 44 minutes.

The 27-year-old, who improved to 9-4 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series against the Greek, has now recorded the most victories on Tour in 2023, surpassing Carlos Alcaraz (63-9). He will aim to clinch his 65th win and sixth title of the season when he meets Jannik Sinner or Andrey Rublev in Sunday’s final.

If Medvedev successfully triumphs in Vienna, it will be his first successful title defence on the ATP Tour. He has won 20 tour-level singles crowns but has never won a single event more than once.

In a high-quality semi-final, both hit with consistent aggression. Medvedev struck 22 winners to Tsitsipas’ 29, while the World No. 3 was impressive on serve, winning 84 per cent (41/49) of points behind his first delivery. With little to separate them in the second set, two forehand errors from Tsitsipas from 6/6 in the tie-break proved decisive.

2021 – 63 victories
2023 – 6️⃣4️⃣ victories (so far 😅)

A career-best milestone for @DaniilMedwed as he pips Tsitsipas 6-4, 7-6(6) to book a final spot@ErsteBankOpen | #erstebankopen pic.twitter.com/xGtd4MRqGW

— ATP Tour (@atptour) October 28, 2023

Medvedev is trying to win his third ATP 500 title of the year and third on hard courts, after clinching trophies in Rotterdam and Dubai. Earlier this week he survived three-set tests against Grigor Dimitrov and Karen Khachanov but looked close to his best against Tsitsipas.

Tsitsipas was aiming to reach his fourth final of the season, having triumphed in Los Cabos earlier this year. The Greek leaves Vienna sixth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin on 3,875 points, 820 points clear of ninth-placed Taylor Fritz, who is outside of the cut. The Top 8 players will qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held from 12-19 November. Medvedev has already stamped his ticket for Turin.

Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin moved to within one win of capturing their fourth title of the season together on Saturday when they defeated Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz 6-4, 6-4 at the Swiss Indoors Basel.

The third seeds were strong on serve, saving the only break point they faced, while they converted two of their four break point opportunities to advance after 73 minutes at the ATP 500 event.

By reaching their fourth final of the year, Gonzalez and Roger-Vasselin have boosted their Nitto ATP Finals qualification chances. They are currently fifth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings.

The Mexican-French team will aim to make it four wins from four finals on Sunday when they meet Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski. Nys and Zielinski (11th in the Race) boosted their Nitto ATP Finals hopes at the expense of fellow Turin rivals Jamie Murray and Michael Venus (ninth) with a 4-6, 6-4, 10-7 win.

In Vienna, US Open champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury rallied from a set down to defeat Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer 6-7(2), 3-6, 10-6 in the smei-finals.

The final will be a high-stakes showdown between the second seeds and Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow, who are in eighth position in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Team Rankings, hopeful of making their debut at the Nitto ATP Finals.

But due to the Grand Slam champion’s rule, to make it to Turin Lammons and Withrow will need to finish seventh in the Race, a position Ram and Salisbury currently hold. The 30-year-olds will move to within 127 points of Ram and Salisbury with the title, but would fall 527 points behind with a defeat Sunday.

Former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini has announced that he will not play again this year.

The 27-year-old Italian, who has slipped to No. 90 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, has not competed since the US Open, where he retired from his second-round match with an ankle injury. Berrettini, who last year had surgery on his right hand, also missed most of this year’s clay season with an abdominal injury. He will finish the year with a 12-11 match record.

“Despite training at a high level for a few weeks my medical team has advised it would be a risk to compete in the final tournaments of the ATP season,” Berrettini wrote on Instagram. “It has been very difficult to accept this but I need to do what is best for next season and my long term career. I will take this opportunity to reset, re-build and start the year fully fit and healthy.

“It has been an extremely tough year but I’m looking forward to a full and successful season in 2024.

“I will stay in close contact with the Davis Cup captain and make myself available to support team Italy in any way I can for the Finals.”