Home » Sport » The great absences from the ATP Cup

The great absences from the ATP Cup

A new tennis season begins with a tournament recently added to the calendar. The arrival of the ATP Cup in 2020 it was a kind of response by the ATP to the new format of the Davis Cup, the birth of a tournament that not only allows you to represent your country in the team mode, but also to do so with the addition of being able to get ATP points for the ranking. That and its location on the calendar became the main attraction: it seems, for many, the ideal tournament to gain rhythm for the Open de Australia 2022, measuring yourself against top-tier players with that added feeling of patriotism. However, the different circumstances that will surround their dispute for 2022 have caused that, once the initial list of registered players has come out, we have several casualties of renowned figures.

It is a list made up of illustrious players, but which is far from made up of the majority of the stars on the circuit. In fact, it should be noted that the ATP Cup will be a success when it comes to the big names: nine of the top ten Players of the world will say present, eighteen of the twenty best in the world as well. Who are the only members of the top-20 who will not be in Sydney? Without a doubt, the main absences from the list: neither more nor less than Fedal. Neither Rafael Nadal ni Roger Federer They will compete in the next ATP Cup, for totally different reasons: the Swiss still has a long way to go in order to fully recover his knee, predicting a return closer to the central part of 2022 than to the first part of the season; For his part, the manacorí has ​​decided to give himself a little more margin in order to grease the machinery for the Australian Open 2022, knowing that his latest annoyances require a much more gradual process of improvement and recovery.

From here, quite a few players on the ATP circuit have decided not to appear in the team tournament. The absence of some is more surprising than others, and even one of the resignations has hurt their own country. It is the case of Gaël Monfils, who has decided to play one of the previous 250 category tournaments (in this case, Adelaide) instead of the team competition: thus, his quota has gone to the player who precedes him in the ranking, Taylor Fritz , ensuring the presence of the United States in the tournament and causing the absence of France, which also eliminates other names such as Ugo Humbert, Benoit Paire, Arthur Rinderknech or one of the best couples in the world, Herbert / Mahut.

Other players have chosen the same path as Gaël, that of trying to add a new title to their record before traveling to Sydney, influenced by the fact that they probably do not have a guaranteed place when it comes to contesting the singles points. This could be the case for names like Karen Khachanov, fourth Russian sword that has decided to absent himself from the call; Reilly Opelka, Frances Tiafoe, Sebastian Korda o Tommy Paul, who have decided to leave the role of third man of the call yankee to Brandon Nakashima despite having a better ranking, or Miomir Kecmanovic, present in the last Davis Cup that, however, will not accompany Djokovic, Lajovic and Krajinovic in this adventure.

ALCARAZ, ONE LESS FEATURE

This list could not be missing someone who has earned on his own merits being in the best places on the circuit. In this case, Carlos Alcaraz placeholder image He has also decided to prepare piecemeal for the next Australian Open, extending the preseason and opting to decline his presence in the Spanish team. Thus, the Murcian will travel to the ocean floor a little later than many of his compatriots, prioritizing arriving more rested at the beginning of 2022 (he has experienced a season-heavy end of matches, even with injuries and COVID in between). Finally, the absences section is completed by names of countries that have not earned their place in the competition (Grigor Dimitrov, Alexander Bublik, Marin Cilic, Lloyd Harris, David Goffin, Marton Fucsovics or Kei Nishikori) and a legend who will let the best players from his country play the tournament: Andy murray, of whom there is still no known roadmap for the start of the next campaign.

– .

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.