Norrie criticizes Djokovic’s “strange” qualification for Nitto ATP finals
The Briton questioned the ranking system as Djokovic will go toNitto ATP finals while other tennis players failed to score points at Wimbledon.
The Rolex Paris Masters, the last tournament of the Tour Masters category to be played in 2022, will determine the last two places for the Nitto ATP Finals which will be held from 13-20 November in Turin. It presents a chance for two more players to join Carlos Álcaraz, Rafa Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud and Daniil Medvedev - who hold the top five positions in the ATP Race rankings, and Novak Djokovic...
Although Djokovic is outside of the Race top 5, he has qualified for the Nitto ATP finals due to his status as Wimbledon champion and for having finished in the top 20 over the course of the year.
Kyrgios penalised
Some people are not happy about that. In his press conference after beating Miomir Kecmanovic, Cameron Norrie described Djokovic’s classification as “strange” and criticized the fact that other players who shone at Wimbledon did not receive the same points awarded. “Novak obviously qualified from Wimbledon so that seems a bit strange. I don’t know if that was the rule before or not, but it seems unfair, I guess for Nick Kyrgios as well. He lost in the final and he gets nothing. I knew that I hadn’t had the points all along, but I was still in with pretty decent chance I thought,” he told reporters.
It’s worthwhile remembering that the ATP decided not to award ranking points at Wimbledon in response to the tournament’s decision not to let players from Belarus and Russia compete - a measure that prevented Djokovic from scoring 2,000 points which would have allowed him to seal his mathematical classification with 4,810 points in the Race. However, it also left tennis players like Nick Kyrgios out of contention. Kyrgios would have been in line for the finals if he were able to add the 1,200 points as a finalist (giving him 3,070 points) - or Norrie himself, who would have added 720 points, putting him on 3,165 points. That would have given him an opportunity to book his place in an ATP Finals for which he no longer has options to qualify after the ATP’s controversial points decision at Wimbledon.