A look back at my preseason predictions for the 2023 ATP year-end rankings

At the beginning of every tennis season, I make predictions for the field of eight at the year-end championship–the Nitto ATP Finals. It isn’t an easy task, especially now that the Big 3 no longer have a monopoly on the top of rankings.

Now that the 2023 campaign has come and gone, it’s time to take a look back at my picks. As is the case with most years, they were all over the place. Some were right on the money, while others were way off.

Here they are:

1. Novak Djokovic – Backing Djokovic to finish the year No. 1 in the world wasn’t exactly going out on a limb. But considering that plenty of pundits picked Carlos Alcaraz, I’ll take this as a win. And, of course, it wasn’t close. Djokovic won three of the four Grand Slams plus the Nitto ATP Finals, and he would have an even tighter stranglehold on the top spot if he had been allowed to play Indian Wells and Miami.

2. Daniil Medvedev – This was a minor miss, but not terrible. Medvedev finished third in the rankings with 7,600 points, a little more than 1,000 behind Alcaraz. This basically came down to Alcaraz winning a slam and Medvedev failing to do so. Had Alcaraz lost the Wimbledon final to Djokovic, Medvedev could have flipped the script with just one more title at any level (for example, either of his finals against Jannik Sinner during the fall swing).

3. Carlos Alcaraz – As mentioned above, I was a little bit off but not too far. Alcaraz’s absence from the Australian Open scared me off, which is why I had him at No. 3 instead of No. 2. The 20-year-old Spaniard made up for missing Australia by winning Wimbledon and two Masters 1000 titles, but my prediction that his world domination would have to wait at least one more season was correct.

4. Jannik Sinner – Bullseye! I completely nailed it with Sinner, who–as predicted–announced himself as one of the clear-cut four best players in the world in 2023. The 22-year-old was incredible from start to finish but really came on strong late. His post-U.S. Open swing featured two titles (Beijing, Vienna), two upsets of Djokovic, and a Davis Cup triumph for Italy. Congratulations to Sinner…and to me!

5. Stefanos Tsitsipas – I was 600 points off here, as Tsitsipas finished in the sixth spot–also behind Andrey Rublev. In my preseason predictions piece I praised the Greek’s consistency but questioned his ceiling. Sure enough, that is exactly why he finished No. 5. Tsitsipas was good pretty much the whole way in 2023, but he was surpassed by Sinner–emphatically, too–as the biggest threat to Djokovic, Alcaraz, and Medvedev for slam titles.

6. Felix Auger-Aliassime – Well, this was a massive swing and miss. In fact, I even wrote “No. 6 might be conservative.” LOL. But I would imagine that almost everyone else also tipped Auger-Aliassime to be a Nitto ATP Finals participant, so I can’t be blamed for the pick. We were all wrong. Hey, at least he started to show some signs of life at the end of the year!

7. Rafael Nadal – I was absolutely correct that Nadal would tumble down the rankings in 2023. Of course, I expected No. 7…not No. 664! “At 36 years old, physical issues aren’t going to suddenly disappear,” is what I penned 11 months ago. To say that I was right would–unfortunately–be an understatement.

8. Taylor Fritz – Fritz made a Nitto ATP Finals appearance in 2022 (thanks to Nadal’s withdrawal) and I thought he would make a repeat trip to Turin. Not quite…but close! The 26-year-old American was two spots and fewer than 600 points away. Bad early-round losses at the Australian Open and Wimbledon made the difference.

Nitto ATP Finals alternates

9. Casper Ruud – This wasn’t exactly correct, but it was a good pick. Ruud went from No. 3 in the world at the end of 2022 all the way past No. 9 to No. 11. The Norwegian did well to make it back to the French Open final, but he predictably took a significant step back in every other conceivable way.

10. Andrey Rublev – Anyone who reads my picks on this site or on Twitter knows I have been bullish on Rublev over the years. I finally changed my tune for 2023 (but shouldn’t have!), thinking that all those Grand Slam quarterfinal losses would weigh on him. Well, I was right that the Russian wouldn’t be able to get over that Grand Slam hump. But he did enough at other tournaments (including his first Masters 1000 title) to come in at an impressive fifth in the rankings.

Among the players whom I underrated in 2020 were Alexander Zverev (No. 7), Holger Rune (No. 8), and to a lesser extent Hubert Hurkacz (No. 9).