The ATP NextGen Finals is an year-ending championship that is played between the eight best players under the age of 21 years at the end of the season. The tournament was conceived in 2017 to increase the level of play among young and coming players.
The ATP NextGen Finals was held in Milan, Italy between 2017 and 2022. It is scheduled to be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia between 2023 to 2027. Played on hard courts in an indoor stadium, the tournament offers a prize money of USD $20,00,000 as of 2023. Players qualify for the ATP NextGen Finals by playing in ATP-recognizes tournaments that offer ranking points to players. Seven players qualify based on the amount of points they accumulated in the season and one player qualifies as a wild card.
The eight players who qualify for the competition are divided into two groups. Players in each group play the other in a round-robin format. The top two players in each group qualify for the semi-finals and finals.
Each match is played in the best-of-five sets format on a singles-only court. Instead of the conventional rule of winning six games to win a set, players need to win four games to win a set. At a set score of three games apiece, a tiebreak decides the outcome. No-ad scoring format is followed, wherein the next point at 40-40 is the deciding point for the game. A left serve is counted ‘in’ and play continues. Players need to start the next point within 25 seconds of the completion of the previous point. Players are allowed to use wearable technologies to communicate with their coaches.
Alex de Minaur is the only player to reach the finals of the event twice (consecutively). Unfortunately, the Australian lost both the matches. Daniel Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz are two former champions of the tournament who have went on to become World No.1 players.
The tournament does not offer ranking points. However, the win-loss record of the players in the tournament does add to their career statistics. No player has won the title in two successive years.
