After 11 months of weekly ATP Challenger Tour tournaments, a bow was put on the season which held historic moments.

Whether it was players launching their career, making a comeback, setting records for their home country, or graduating to Tour-level tournaments, ATPTour.com looks at five Challenger player storylines from 2022.

Jack Draper
Nobody finished the year with a better winning percentage on the Challenger Tour than Draper. The 20-year-old boasted a 24-4 Challenger match-winning record and collected a season-leading four Challenger titles (tied w/ Pedro Cachin): Forli-2, Forli-4, Forli-5, and Saint-Brieuc. At the Forli-5 Challenger, Draper fended off four match points in the final to defeat Swiss Alexander Ritschard.

Draper is the second-youngest player from Great Britain to win multiple Challenger titles, only behind the-then 18-year-old Andy Murray in 2005 (Aptos, Binghamton).

“I think the Challenger Tour is massive for players,” Draper said. “When you come through and start winning tournaments back-to-back at that level it gives you huge confidence you can come on Tour and compete with these guys. Everyone on the Challenger level is hungry to do well because that is what gets you onto the Tour. The Challenger Tour has given me a real base and confidence of coming onto the Tour.”

The Briton’s standout season earned him a spot at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals, where he won two round-robin matches and was a semi-finalist (l. Nakashima).

Ben Shelton
The 20-year-old American made the biggest jump to crack the Top 100 this season. After starting the year ranked outside the Top 500 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Shelton climbed to a career-high 97 following three consecutive Challenger titles (Charlottesville, Knoxville, Champaign) and ended the season with a 15 match-winning streak.

Challenger Win Percentage Leaders (2022)

The 2022 NCAA singles champion is the youngest player in Challenger history to win three titles in as many weeks and the second American to do so (Sam Querrey ‘14 Napa, Sacramento, Tiburon). The former University of Florida star is the first player to win a Challenger title and the NCAA singles title in the same season since Steve Johnson in 2012.

“[The Challenger Tour] gives you an opportunity to see tennis from guys who are playing at Top 100-level,” Shelton told ATPTour.com in July. “It’s a lot of different types of competition and it sets you up for playing on the ATP Tour. It’s a really good stepping stone and the level isn’t that far off from the ATP [Tour].”

Chinese Trio
Wu Yibing, Zhang Zhizhen, and Shang Juncheng combined to make Chinese tennis history this season.

Wu, who claimed three Challenger titles this season (Orlando, Rome, Indianapolis), held the second-best winning percentage on the Challenger Tour. In the Indianapolis Challenger final, the 23-year-old saved six championship points in a dramatic 6-7(10), 7-6(13), 6-3 victory over Aleksandar Kovacevic.

After being sidelined for three years due to injuries and the pandemic, Wu was nominated for the 2022 ATP Comeback Player Of The Year.

Wu Yibing in action at the 2022 Indianapolis Challenger. Credit: Larry Lawrence

Part of his inspiring comeback came at Flushing Meadows, where he and Zhang battled through qualifying to become the first Chinese men to compete in the US Open main draw in the Open Era.

In October, Zhang became the first Chinese male to crack the Top 100. The Shanghai native was a four-time Challenger finalist this season, including in Cordenons, Italy, where he won his first Challenger title since October 2019 (Shenzhen).

At the Lexington Challenger, it was Shang’s turn to etch his name into the history books. The Beijing native won the hard court event to become the youngest (17 years, 6 months) Challenger champion this season. Since 2010, only four men have won a Challenger title at a younger age: Felix Auger-Aliassime (16 years, 10 months), Alexander Zverev (17 years, 2 months), Carlos Alcaraz (17 years, 3 months), and Nicola Kuhn (17 years, 3 months).

Pedro Cachin
It was a record-setting year for Argentine players, who combined for 23 Challenger titles. Cachin, 27, led the way as he competed in seven Challenger finals this year and claimed four titles: Madrid, Prague, Todi, Santo Domingo. The Bell Ville native was the only Argentine to win more than a pair of titles this season.

“[Argentina’s 23] Challenger titles in a year is incredible.” Cachin said. “It’s amazing to have such an opportunity for all the players to be a part of something special like that. It is not easy for our players to travel the world, going very far from home, but to have this achievement makes it all worth it.”

At the US Open, Cachin won back-to-back five-setters to reach the third round (l. Moutet). After starting the season as No. 245, Cachin’s breakthrough season propelled him to a career-high 54 in November.

Luca Nardi

The 19-year-old’s three Challenger titles this season was the most of any Italian. The Pesaro native triumphed at the Forli-1, Lugano, and Mallorca Challengers. #TheNextGenATP star’s title on home soil in January made him the second-youngest (18 years, 5 months) Challenger winner this season. Nardi and Swiss Dominic Stricker were the only teenagers to win multiple Challenger titles this season.

Luca Nardi celebrates winning a point at the 2022 Mallorca Challenger. Credit: Alvaro Diaz/Rafa Nadal Academy

At the beginning of the year, Nardi made new commitments to himself, which helped him achieve a career-high 126.

“I started training harder and with more intensity. I also started a diet and eating better,” Nardi told ATPTour.com in May. “Everything is going better from that. I’m trying to be as professional as I can. In general, it is the same training, with maybe some extra work on the forehand and backhand, but the intensity is much different. That is the difference.”

In October, Nardi earned his maiden Tour-level win (d. Shevchenko) at the ATP 250 event in Astana, where he advanced through qualifying and lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round.

This week, ATPTour.com continues its annual season-in-review series, looking back at 2022’s best matches, biggest upsets, most dramatic comebacks and more. In this installment, we look back at Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas’ rivalry in 2022. On Tuesday we will focus on Nick Kyrgios and Daniil Medvedev’s rivalry.

Very little has separated Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas throughout their ATP Head2Head history, which the Greek Tsitsipas leads 6-5. Neither man has won more than two consecutive matchups in the series, with straight-sets wins a rarity.

That theme continued in 2022, when all three meetings went to a deciding set. Tsitsipas won the first two, in Madrid and Astana, before Rublev got the last laugh at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin. ATPTour.com looks back at those matches as we put one of the season’s best rivalries in the spotlight.

Mutua Madrid Open, QF, Tsitsipas d. Rublev 6-3, 2-6, 6-4
Less than a month after he successfully defended his Monte Carlo title, Tsitsipas made another deep clay-court run at the ATP Masters 1000 in Madrid. After he stormed into the quarter-finals without dropping a set and ripped through the opener against Rublev, the Greek met his first real resistance on the week as the match wore on.

The Tsitsipas serve was the standout shot in the opening set, as the fourth seed dropped just six points on his delivery, but Rublev’s forehand did the heavy damage in set two. Neither man could pull away as they traded blows in the final set, and a tie-break seemed the likely outcome. But at 4-4, Tsitsipas produced a brilliant return game to edge ahead before serving out a hard-fought win.

“He was really applying a lot of force into the strokes, and it wasn’t easy predicting what was going to come next,” said Tsitsipas after fending off two Rublev break points in the final game. “But I’m very glad with the way things ended.

“It’s never easy playing him, and I really had to survive that last game with my best strength and give out my soul, pretty much, to finish it in such a good way.”

Perhaps feeling the effects of the two-hour battle, Tsitsipas was outlasted by Alexander Zverev in a three-set semi-final defeat. 

Astana Open, SF, Tsitsipas d. Rublev 4-6, 6-4, 6-3
Five months after their Madrid meeting in May, Tsitsipas and Rublev squared off on the hard courts of Astana in October. 

Rublev used a fast start to take the opening set, saving three break points in the process, but it was Tsitsipas who excelled on the pressure points in sets two and three. After some battling holds in the final two sets, Tsitsipas struck late in each to advance to his sixth title match on the year. (He would finish 2022 with seven tour-level final appearances.)

The Greek pointed to his variety and aggression as the keys to his comeback at the ATP 500, while also crediting Rublev for his role in an entertaining matchup.

“I hit with a lot of variation and mixing and it went my way towards the end,” he said. “I kept pursuing those shots with a lot of passion and determination. It was not easy, being a set down. To have to deal with a very good opponent on the other side of the net made it an extremely physically battle. I am pleased with myself for being so determined to make it work so well.”

In the final, Tsitsipas did not have another fightback in him as he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets.

Nitto ATP Finals, RR, Rublev d. Tsitsipas 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
It was Rublev’s turn to come from behind in Turin, as he beat Tsitsipas in the round-robin stage of the season finale for the second straight year. Their 2022 matchup took on added significance — a winner-takes-all contest to close group play, with the winner advancing to the knockout rounds at the loser’s expense.

Tsitsipas was scorching at the start as he raced through the opening set behind vicious cuts on his serve and forehand. But Rublev stayed the course to advance to the semis for the first time in three Nitto ATP Finals appearances. As dominant as Tsitsipas was in the opening set, Rublev matched it and then some as he dictated play in the later stages. 

From 3-3 in set two, Rublev won nine of the final 11 games by firing winners off both wings and stepping into his returns with great effect.

“I didn’t give up. I kept fighting and playing,” he said. “I lost my emotions a bit when I lost a stupid game at 40/0 in the first set. I let my emotions go… I thought I would have chances if I just gave my best. I managed to turn the match around.”

For Rublev’s part, he sees their games as closely matched, as evidenced by the slim 6-5 lead Tsitsipas holds in their ATP Head2Head series: “If you take our match, every match, we have tough battles,” he said in Turin when told of Tsitsipas’ remarks. “This year I lost to him twice in three sets, and now I beat him in three sets.”

The pair have met three times in each of the past three seasons, and the stage is perfectly set for more in 2023.

Read more of our Best Of 2022 series

The ATP and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) have announced the launch of the Accelerator Programme, a groundbreaking initiative designed to accelerate the careers of young aspiring tennis players from 2023.

The programme will see playing opportunities at ATP Challenger Tour-level reserved for the world’s top junior players, creating an accelerated pathway into professional tennis. The new initiative supplements the 2023 Challenger Tour changes announced in September, which signal ATP’s long-term strategy for the circuit through significant prize money increases, a balanced calendar and an increase in total and premium playing opportunities.

The move comes as the ITF continues to develop more opportunities for players to progress through its pathway via the ITF World Tennis Tour on to the top level of the game.

Each player ranked in the Top 20 of the year-end ITF Junior Rankings will be granted up to eight Accelerator Spots at Challenger 50 or 75 tournaments the following season. These will be split between main draw (Top 10) and qualifying (Nos. 11-20), with players also eligible for two Accelerator Spots at M15 or M25 ITF World Tennis Tour events. Players ranked Nos. 21-30 in the year-end ITF Junior Rankings will be eligible for eight spots at M15 or M25 events.

Junior Grand Slam singles champions and finalists will also be eligible for the Accelerator Programme. Champions will receive the same allocation of main draw opportunities as the Top 10 group, while finalists will join players ranked Nos. 11-20 in receiving access into qualifying.

Andrea Gaudenzi, ATP Chairman: “Tennis has always been a sport that rewards hard work, and we must create an environment that allows young, aspiring players to reach their potential. It is our responsibility to open the door to opportunity and allow them to thrive in the sport. The Accelerator Programme is creating a pathway for the next generation of champions and we look forward to seeing it come into play from 2023.”

Further bolstering the Accelerator Programme is a new ‘Promotion’ mechanic, which allows juniors ranked in the year-end Top 20 and junior Grand Slam champions and finalists who achieve direct acceptance by Pepperstone ATP Ranking into ATP Challenger qualifying, to be promoted into the main draw. The promotion mechanic will be available across all Challenger categories.

David Haggerty, ITF President: “It is important that tennis works together to create new opportunities for young players. By collaborating, we can create a brighter future for the sport and ensure that future generations have opportunities to progress to the top of the game. We are excited to be part of the effort to make this happen.”

Junior players eligible for the 2023 Accelerator Programme will be based off the year-end ITF Junior Rankings, calculated today on Monday, 12 December 2022.

LA NACION journalist Sebastian Torok has been recognised with the Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award in the 2022 ATP Awards.

“Receiving this award really honours me and fills me with happiness and enthusiasm to continue telling stories in the future,” Torok said. “I lived intense moments during more than 15 years of coverage of the international tennis circuit and it is a privilege to have known new countries and cultures.”

Torok has been a journalist for the Argentine newspaper LA NACION since 2000. He has covered football, rugby, boxing and handball but specialises in tennis, reporting on Argentina’s Davis Cup Finals title run in 2016.

Torok has been a radio columnist and, since 2018, has been a commentator on ESPN Latin America. He also wrote biographies on Juan Martin del Potro (‘El milagro Del Potro’ and ‘The Gentle Giant’) and Gustavo Fernandez, a leading figure in wheelchair tennis (‘Hambre de Lobo’).

The Argentine received international recognition at the AIPS Sport Media Awards for various investigations and one of his career highlights as a journalist was interviewing Roger Federer in Basel in 2019.

“It was a pleasure to be able to interview Federer in his privacy in Basel,” Torok said. “I enjoyed the reports on other great emblems such as Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Del Potro, and I was very grateful to be able to interview Alcaraz and Swiatek this year.”

Winners in the 2022 ATP Awards will be announced throughout this coming week.

After a breakout season in which they won the Australian Open doubles title and debuted at the Nitto ATP Finals, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios have yet another reason to smile at the close of the year. The Australians have been voted as the Fans’ Favourite doubles team in the 2022 ATP Awards.

The popular pairing and longtime friends started the season with a bang on home soil, winning a first team title at the year’s first Grand Slam. Each of their matches in Melbourne was played in a party atmosphere, and that theme continued as they enjoyed sustained success around the world.

“Just wanted to say a massive thank you for voting us, me and Nick, as your fans’ favorite ATP Doubles Team of the Year,” said Kokkinakis. “It’s been a hell of a year, winning our first Grand Slam on home soil in Australia. Crazy atmosphere down there, the support we’ve gotten all year has been amazing. Thanks again and hopefully we can keep it rolling. We’ll see you all in January. Thank you!”

 

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In addition to their Australian Open title, other standout results included a run to the Miami semis and a title triumph in Atlanta. Their results earned them a place in Turin for the Nitto ATP Finals, where they marked their first appearance with a round-robin win.

“Me and Thanasi never thought we were going to be here at the [Nitto ATP Finals],” Kygrios said. “We always thought we could do some good things together, but to put a year [together] consistently like this — and we didn’t even play, we played maybe six or seven events or something — the experience has been cool.”

The singles stars have shown they belong with the game’s best on the doubles court, and fans will be hoping they continue to light up the ATP Tour together in 2023.

The inaugural edition of the United Cup promises plenty, given the exciting team line-ups that have been announced.

Several countries boast leading male and female players with a long history of shared success, and in many instances, they enjoy long associations and great relationships on and off the court.

We revisit moments when soon-to-be United Cup teammates have shone in tandem, and how this bodes well for their teams ahead of the 2023 event. 

A Decade On, Hewitt & Stosur Re-unite

Ten years ago, Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur represented Australia in mixed doubles at the London 2012 Olympics.

Now, they will join forces once again – this time to co-captain Team Australia at the United Cup.

Hewitt and Stosur’s London 2012 partnership was made possible with the return of mixed doubles to the Olympic Tennis programme for the first time in almost 100 years. Both Grand Slam singles champions, the Aussies had also flourished in their respective doubles careers, and it showed when they began playing together.

They dominated Polish fourth seeds Agnieszka Radwanska and Marcin Matkowski 6-3 6-3, then came within a few points of the medal rounds before falling to Brits Andy Murray and Laura Robson in a Wimbledon Centre Court thriller.

“That was a huge experience, playing with someone like Lleyton in the Olympic Games,” Stosur reflected. “I didn’t love warming up with him, because his ball just skidded through the grass too much for me, so that wasn’t great to be on the other end of it (smiling). But playing with him was obviously a lot better.”

Stosur, who at age 38 now only competes in doubles, said she was looking forward to learning the ways of team captaincy from Hewitt, who is also Australia’s Davis Cup team captain.

“He’s obviously got heaps of experience captaining Davis Cup and being on the bench… whereas I’m kind of the newbie, I’ll be trying to find my feet. So I think it’s going to be a great opportunity to kind of learn from him and see how it goes,” she said.

“To actually be privy now to the actual (strategic and coaching selection) information I think is going to be pretty awesome.”

Team Poland Keeps It Among Friends

Represented by the talented duo of Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz, Team Poland is one of the few United Cup nations boasting two Top 10 players.

It also helps that these two leading players get along extremely well.

Welcome to the BNP Paribas Poland Open!

Supported by champions Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz, the new WTA tournament held in Gdynia hosts some of the best Top 50 and Top 100 players starting this weekend pic.twitter.com/VDxdmkzAcb

— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) July 17, 2021

The duo came together to play a “mixed singles” exhibition match ahead of the WTA Poland Open in Gdynia in 2021, thrilling home fans who packed into the stands. 

Their ascents have coincided; Swiatek broke through with her triumph at Roland Garros in 2020, while Hurkacz won his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Miami in 2021 before reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals that same year.

Swiatek attained a new level in 2022, wresting control of the women’s tour to become a dominant World No.1, adding two more majors to her collection.

Hurkacz also continued to enjoy success, ending a season inside the Top 10 for the second consecutive year in 2022.

The two Polish stars have been supportive of each other along their respective journeys, frequently congratulating each other on social media for their achievements.

pic.twitter.com/Zs2d5VGH4M

— Hubert Hurkacz (@HubertHurkacz) September 11, 2022

The Kindest

— Iga Świątek (@iga_swiatek) August 28, 2022

Team Poland captain Agnieszka Radwanska said that in team competitions, it was important that the atmosphere within the squad made players feel comfortable and supported.

“They have a lot of stress and a lot of adrenaline everywhere. So this kind of event… Of course, you go on court and you want to win, but also on the other hand, you want to have a little bit of fun and you want to really enjoy the tennis,” the former WTA World No.2 said. “So I think having friends in a team is the best that we can have.”

Greek Pride For Tsitsipas & Sakkari

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari have long shared an association as the standard bearers of Greek tennis. They have known each other since they were children; their mothers were both also professional players. 

As their journeys have unfolded, they have frequently overlapped; there is a wonderful story that Sakkari, upon receiving funding from the Greek Olympic Federation to prepare for her Tokyo 2020 campaign, gave a chunk of it to Tsitsipas.

They are now the two highest-ranked Greek players in history, both having recently held career-high positions of World No.3, and they have come together on several occasions to represent their country proudly – first at the Hopman Cup in 2019, then in mixed doubles at the Tokyo 2020 games.

Most recently, they teamed up in an exhibition mixed doubles match at the 2022 US Open to raise funds for war-torn Ukraine.

“It’s wonderful to see (Maria’s rise). I’m extremely proud and happy that she was able to equal me and get to No. 3. I think she can do better than that,” Tsitsipas said. “I was watching her progress, I was watching most of her matches. She deserves to be there more than anyone.”

Added Sakkari: “For Greek people I think it’s very nice to have a female and a male player competing in that level, and especially giving them a lot of joy. I think they are proud of us. Stefanos inspires me a lot. It’s very, very good and very important for me to be kind of like by his side in that journey.”

Support Strong In Norwegian squad

One of the warmest moments at Roland Garros in 2022 came when Casper Ruud was interviewed on court following his quarter-final victory. The rising star had just broken through for his first Grand Slam semifinal, improving upon his record as the best-performed Norwegian man at a major tournament.

But instead, he used his moment to highlight somebody else’s achievement.

“A big day for Norwegian tennis” @CasperRuud98 @ueikeri #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/f4hz3g1N4e

— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 1, 2022

“A big day for Norwegian tennis, because we have also a female player, Ulrikke Eikeri, who made the final of mixed doubles today. She is even one step further than me,” he said.

“She will play for probably her biggest title of her life tomorrow so I wish her luck.”

Ruud then attended the mixed final at Court Philippe Chatrier the following day to support his countrywoman.

Eikeri told rolandgarros.com she drew inspiration from Ruud, who enjoyed a banner 2022 season highlighted by two Grand Slam finals and a rise to World No.2.

“I’m so happy for Casper and it’s huge for Norwegian tennis… For sure he’s inspiring all of Norway, all the new tennis players coming up and it makes everyone believe it’s possible,” she said.

Ruud and Eikeri will come together to represent Norway at the United Cup, where they will feature in Group E alongside Brazil and Italy and play their matches in Brisbane.

Tennis and mathematics may have a few things in common, but for Frenchman Luca Van Assche, they intertwine daily as he makes a rapid rise on the ATP Challenger Tour.

While travelling weekly to tournaments, the 18-year-old remains in school at Paris Dauphine University, where he is a sophomore. The teen is studying math and handles school while away from home.

“I have a lot of homework when I’m on the road, but of course I manage it,” Van Assche told ATPTour.com. “Sometimes it’s difficult to do both. For the moment I’m enjoying doing both so I will continue like this.

“I cannot do online tests, I have to be in Paris. There are like two weeks of exams this year, one week in June and one in January. I study when I’m at home and on Tour, and for the exams I just need to be in Paris.”

The Belgian-born star, who moved to France at age three, enjoyed a late-season surge on the Challenger Tour. In October at the Brest Challenger, Van Assche downed Portuguese Nuno Borges for his first Top-100 victory. It was an emotional, dramatic three-set match that concluded around 1:30 a.m. Van Assche advanced to the final in France, where he fell short to countryman Gregoire Barrere.

After finishing runner-up at the Lisbon, Brest, and Valencia Challengers, Van Assche was even hungrier to capture his maiden title. At his final tournament of the year, the Maia Open, Van Assche rallied from a set down in the championship match to triumph.

Luca Van Assche celebrates a semi-final win at the 2022 Brest Challenger. Credit: Un Oeil Averty

“It was a great week for me, I’m so happy to win,” Van Assche said in his post-match press conference. “When I lost the first set [in the final], I was thinking about it like, ‘I cannot lose four finals!’ I continued to fight and it worked. It was my goal to win a Challenger this year and I did it at the last tournament of the year.”

Now at a career-high 138 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Van Assche is the youngest French player in the Top 200.

Van Assche is one of nine teenage Challenger champions this year and the youngest French winner since Corentin Moutet won the Brest Challenger in 2017. Following Van Assche’s title in Portugal, he joined an exclusive list of French Challenger champions aged 18 and under: Richard Gasquet, Sebastien Grosjean, Gael Monfils, Fabrice Santoro, and Moutet.

“I saw that stat the day after I won the title and those guys are a big inspiration for me and French players,” Van Assche said. “I’m very proud to be in that group and I want to have a big career like them.”

Luca Van Assche at the Brest Challenger. Credit: Un Oeil Averty

The #NextGenATP youngster has made quick progress in the early stages of his career. One of his most memorable moments came at Roland Garros in 2021, when Van Assche won the boys’ singles title, where he defeated his countryman and close friend Arthur Fils in the final.

“Winning the Roland Garros juniors title was very special to me,” Van Assche said. “I live in Paris, so it was home. I had my family and loved ones there. I could leave my junior career very happy, I was so proud.

“There were four French players in the semi-finals of the Roland Garros boys’ singles that year, it was very cool for us. I hope that the future of French tennis will be very good.”

Van Assche has many memories to look back on from this year, including making his Tour-level debut at the ATP 250 event in Antwerp, where he pushed Yoshihito Nishioka to a third-set tie-break. The Frenchman finished the season winning nine of his final 10 matches and now looks to build upon his success in 2023.

“My goal is to continue like how I ended the year, with a lot of confidence,” Van Assche said. “I’m just working hard every day and my goal is to be in the Top 100 as soon as possible.”

Cut through all the specialised training programmes and every ATP Tour player has one ultimate, yet simple goal for their game: make it a little bit better each day they step on the court or hit the gym.

The four men nominated for Most Improved Player of the Year in the 2022 ATP Awards succeeded in that pursuit more than most this season, their climbs up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings proof positive of their breakthrough years.

Up for the award this year are: Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune, Jack Draper and Maxime Cressy. The winner will be announced later this month.

Carlos Alcaraz, 19
Billed as a budding superstar on the heels of a strong finish to 2021 — one that saw him reach the US Open quarter-finals and later claim the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals title — Alcaraz had a lot to live up to this season. The Spaniard not only met those lofty expectations, he exceeded them in record time.

After winning the first of his five titles on the year at the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro to break into the Top 20, Alcaraz showed he could deliver on the game’s biggest stages by winning his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Miami after a semi-final run in Indian Wells. He then brought the show to his home fans, claiming a Spanish trophy double in Barcelona and Madrid, beating Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev in succession in the latter event.

More success put Alcaraz in position to reach the top spot in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings at the US Open, and he took the chance with aplomb to become the youngest World No. 1 since the rankings began in 1973.

“For me it’s a dream come true being No. 1 in the world, to be a Grand Slam champion,” Alcaraz told the ATP Tour after the US Open.

“Everything has come so fast. I didn’t think at the beginning of the year that I’m going to have the year that I’m having right now,” he continued. “I always believe in my team and in my work, so this is something that came with the hard work that I put in every day, the hard preseason, the work during the year with my team. Everything pays off.”

Holger Rune, 19
Rune completed his rise from outside the Top 100 into the Top 10 with a stunning run to the biggest title of his career at the Rolex Paris Masters. By beating five Top 10 players in a row, including Djokovic in the final, the Dane earned himself a place in that elite group — and alternate status at the Nitto ATP Finals — before finishing the year as World No. 11.

It was a fitting end to a stellar indoor season for Rune, during which he reached four straight finals and won two titles (Stockholm, Paris). But his season began to sparkle long before the final months.

During the European clay swing, which he started with an ATP Challenger Tour title in Sanremo, Rune won his first tour-level title in Munich to break into the Top 50 for the first time. He backed that up with a breakout run to the Roland Garros quarter-finals, beating 2021 finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth round. 

“It’s crazy in every way” Rune said of his season, speaking with ATP Media in Turin. “It’s been a lot of improvements, beginning the year as World No. 103, and now Top 10. I had a goal to finish Top 25 and now I’m Top 10, so it’s even better.”

Asked to pick out the biggest of those improvements, Rune pointed out his serve and first-serve percentage, his mental game and his physical development.

Jack Draper, 20
Great Britain’s Draper was the lowest-ranked of the four Most Improved nominees at the start of the year, entering 2022 as World No. 265. He put in the hard yards on the ATP Challenger Tour to kickstart his season, winning four titles in three months before taking his powerful lefty game to the ATP Tour.

He splashed onto the scene at tour-level with Top 20 wins against Taylor Fritz at The Queen’s Club and Diego Schwartzman in Eastbourne, going on to reach his first ATP Tour semi-final in the latter event on home soil. 

Draper built on those results during the hard-court swing, beating Top 10 opponents Stefanos Tsitsipas in Montreal and Felix Auger-Aliassime at the US Open. Both of those wins made our lists of best upsets of 2022 on the ATP Tour and at the Grand Slams, respectively.

“I think the most satisfying run was [at] the US Open,” Draper told ATPTour.com ahead of the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals, where he reached the semi-finals. “I feel I beat two players in [Emil] Ruusuvuori and Auger-Aliassime who are top players and people I have been watching the past couple of years. The win against Auger-Aliassime gave me confidence that I can play well and really compete with these guys. The Tsitsipas win as well in Montreal. Playing those top players and getting wins and feeling comfortable is crucial.”

Maxime Cressy, 25
Cressy had yet to break into the Top 100 prior to this season, but the Paris-born American had been trending in that direction since turning pro in 2019 following a four-year collegiate career at UCLA. A late bloomer on the ATP Tour, Cressy wasted no time in starting his rise up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings this year as he fine-tuned his unique, serve-and-volley game.

In his first event, he reached the final as a qualifier at the Melbourne Summer Set and gave Nadal all he could handle in the title match. Cressy backed up that run with his best Grand Slam result as he advanced to the Australian Open fourth round, beating John Isner and taking a set off eventual finalist Daniil Medvedev before bowing out.

Firmly positioned in the Top 100, Cressy soared into the Top 50 after reaching his second ATP Tour final in Eastbourne before an upset win against Auger-Aliassime in the Wimbledon opening round. With his aggressive style perfectly suited to grass courts, Cressy won his first tour-level title on home soil in Newport in July with a third-set tie-break win against Alexander Bublik in the final.

“I think it’s the most incredible feeling that I’ve had in my entire life,” he told ATPTour.com after the victory. “It’s difficult to describe. I’ve been looking forward to that first title for a very long time.”

Refusing to be satisfied with his success to date, Cressy has been bold in setting himself a long-term target of reaching World No. 1.

The offseason is an opportunity for the players of the ATP Tour to enjoy time away from their typical routine. For most of the stars, it is an opportunity to sleep in.

Not for 2017 Nitto ATP Finals champion Grigor Dimitrov.

“[I] wake up at six,” Dimitrov said. “I wake up very early!”

The Bulgarian enjoys taking in the world around him, as often seen on his social media pages. What does it take to snag the perfect offseason photo?

“You’ve just got to have the eye for it,” Dimitrov said. “Sometimes it’s one take, sometimes it doesn’t work. But then all of a sudden you get to the right place at the right time and boom, you have it.”

 

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Tommy Paul said his girlfriend enjoys spending time skiing in the mountains, so they plan to go to Colorado this offseason.

“I would say a good climate [is important],” Paul said. “I mean it could be warm or cold if it’s pretty. It’s just got to be in a pretty place.”

According to Karen Khachanov, the key to the offseason is the ability to spend time with his loved ones.

“My family,” Khachanov said. “During the year it’s a very intense season and you travel a lot, so that’s the only time when you can stay home a little bit more relaxed and you can stay with family.”

What would be the players’ advice to enjoy some time off? Denis Shapovalov’s answer might surprise you.

“Get off of your phone,” he said. “Just enjoy being in the moment.”