Most Improved Nominees: Humbert, Rublev, Schwartzman & Sinner Shining
The Most Improved Player of the Year in the 2020 ATP Awards goes to the player who reached a significantly higher FedEx ATP Ranking by year’s end, and who demonstrated an increasingly improved level of performance through the season. This year’s nominees are Ugo Humbert, Andrey Rublev, Diego Schwartzman and Jannik Sinner. The winner, as selected by the players, will be announced later this month.
| Player | 2019 Year-End | 2020 Year-End | Career-High (Date) |
| Ugo Humbert | No. 57 | No. 30 (+27) | No. 30 (Nov. 9) |
| Andrey Rublev | No. 23 | No. 8 (+15) | No. 8 (Oct. 19) |
| Diego Schwartzman | No. 14 | No. 9 (+5) | No. 8 (Oct. 12) |
| Jannik Sinner | No. 78 | No. 37 (+41) | No. 37 (Nov. 16) |
Ugo Humbert
22-year-old Ugo Humbert won his first ATP Tour title in the second week of the 2020 season in Auckland, and claimed his second on the second-to-last week of the season in Antwerp. Despite the unprecedented events of 2020 that happened in between those milestones, the Frenchman stayed solid as he established himself as a rising force on the Tour.
After starting the year ranked No. 57, Humbert broke into the Top 50 after his win in Auckland, which made him the youngest Frenchman to claim an ATP Tour title since 21-year-old Richard Gasquet in 2007. When the ATP Tour resumed after its COVID-19 suspension, Humbert found another level as he earned the biggest win of his career over No. 5 Daniil Medvedev en route to his first ATP 500 quarter-final in Hamburg. He backed up that result by winning his second tour-level title in Antwerp, and he also posted his first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final appearance in Paris to end the season at a career-high No. 30 in the FedEx ATP Rankings.
“Tennis is a game for me. It’s fun. That’s why I love it, but it’s also a personal challenge for me. It’s more like a fulfillment,” Humbert told ATP Uncovered presented by Peugeot. “I want to prove that I can do great things in this sport. It’s also because of this that I love tennis, practising and fighting every day against my opponents.
”I was lucky to have the right people around me and make the right decisions. I think it’s important for me to leave a mark. I would like to show my values… I want people to see that I enjoy myself when they watch me. I want them to play as well, or at least that they want to try when they watch me.”
Andrey Rublev
The seemingly tireless Andrey Rublev ended the year the same way he started it: on a hot streak. The 23-year-old added five ATP Tour titles to his haul this year, the most of anyone in 2020, outpacing even World No.1 Novak Djokovic.
Rublev exploded onto the courts at the start of 2020 with an 11-match winning streak that took him to back-to-back trophies in Adelaide and Doha and to the Australian Open fourth round for the first time.
The Russian continued to impress after the ATP Tour’s resumption, reaching quarter-finals at the US Open and Roland Garros and picking up his third trophy of the year – and his first ATP 500 title – in Hamburg. Rublev embarked on an 11-match win streak to make it a hat-trick of ATP 500 trophies with victories in St. Petersburg and Vienna. He went on to qualify for his first Nitto ATP Finals and earned a round-robin win over Dominic Thiem to finish the season at a career-high No. 8 in the FedEx ATP Rankings.
“I’m grateful for everything that’s happened to me,” Rublev told press at the Nitto ATP Finals. “I won more tournaments in this year than I’ve won in my life.”
“There are still so many things I can improve. That’s the main goal in the off-season. Now I’m really motivated to improve the main parts [of my game] before we start the new season.”
Diego Schwartzman
New career-high FedEx ATP Ranking? First Nitto ATP Finals appearance? Best Grand Slam result? Check, check and check. Diego Schwartzman ticked off some major milestones in 2020 as he continued his steady rise into the game’s upper echelons.
Schwartzman started the season with a run to the final in Cordoba, and backed it up with a semi-final in Buenos Aires. But the best was yet to come after the Tour’s resumption, and he reached new heights on clay, where he took down Rafael Nadal en route to his first ATP Masters 1000 final at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome. A few weeks later, the Argentine put together his best Grand Slam run at Roland Garros, defeating Dominic Thiem on his way to the semi-finals. Schwartzman went on to qualify for his first Nitto ATP Finals, becoming the first Argentine player to compete at the season-ending event since Juan Martin del Potro in 2013.
“[Usually] at this time, I was always on holidays, and now I’m practising more than ever trying to beat the best guys on Tour,” said Schwartzman in London. “So I’m very excited, I’m trying to enjoy every single moment here, but also I’m trying to work really hard. I have the opportunity to continue doing a good season.”
Jannik Sinner
Nineteen-year-old Jannik Sinner finished the 2019 season by stunning the field in Milan and taking home the Next Gen ATP Finals trophy. By the end of 2020, the youngest member of the Top 100 was lifting his first ATP Tour trophy – and sending a signal to the rest of the ATP that he intends to keep rising.
After claiming his first Grand Slam main draw win at the Australian Open, Sinner kept the positive momentum going early in the season to reach his first ATP 500 quarter-final in Rotterdam. He continued chipping away at his FedEx ATP Ranking throughout the abbreviated season, and made a statement in his Roland Garros debut by reaching the quarter-finals, defeating World No. 7 Alexander Zverev along the way. Sinner sealed his breakthrough season by becoming the youngest ATP Tour titlist in 12 years when he lifted the Sofia Open trophy, boosting him to a new career-high Ranking of No. 37.
“It’s a great progress of hard work,” Sinner said after his win in Sofia, “I have a great team behind me. I’m very excited about this result because sometimes you need them; obviously you’re working hard, so sometimes a result [like this] is good and great to see.
“It’s a great progress, but there’s still a lot of work to do. We will see in a few years where I am, but I think right now I’m very happy about this win.”