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Winning at the Nitto ATP Finals often requires players to raise their games to another level. And with the 2018 season finale less than two months away, Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers investigates which players have best lifted their games during the most recent season finales.

During the past three Nitto ATP Finals, only two players have won a higher percentage of points at the season-ending event than they did during the regular season. An analysis of who competed in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 in London highlights that the elite level of competition for every match dictates that most players walk away from the tournament losing more points than they win.

Grigor Dimitrov leads the pack in the past three years with the highest percentage of points won in London at 55.4 per cent. Last year, Dimitrov won a very respectable 53 per cent of points in the regular season, and improved that by 2.4 percentage points to capture the biggest title of his career.

The only other player to perform better in London in November than everywhere else from January to October was Novak Djokovic in 2016. He won 54.9 per cent of his points in the regular season, and inched a little higher to win an even 55 per cent of his points in the last ATP World Tour tournament of the year.

During the past three years, no other player has been able to increase the percentage of points won at the Nitto ATP Finals over their regular season performances.

2015-2017 Percentage Points Won: Regular Season vs. Nitto ATP Finals

Player

Nitto ATP Finals - Year Played

W / L

Season Win %

Nitto ATP Finals Win %

G. Dimitrov

2017

5-0

53.0%

55.4%

N. Djokovic

2016

4-1

54.9%

55.0%

R. Federer

2015

4-1

55.0%

53.5%

N. Djokovic

2015

5-1

55.0%

53.5%

R. Nadal

2015

3-1

53.4%

53.1%

A. Murray

2016

5-0

54.5%

53.0%

R. Federer

2017

3-1

54.9%

52.8%

M. Raonic

2016

2-2

53.0%

51.8%

D. Goffin

2017

3-2

52.0%

50.0%

A. Zverev

2017

1-2

51.9%

49.3%

S. Wawrinka

2015

2-2

52.0%

49.0%

D. Thiem

2017

1-2

51.8%

48.8%

A. Murray

2015

1-2

53.6%

48.5%

M. Cilic

2016

1-2

52.1%

48.4%

M. Cilic

2017

0-3

53.0%

48.2%

J. Sock

2017

2-2

50.4%

47.9%

K. Nishikori

2016

1-3

52.4%

47.5%

G. Monfils

2016

0-2

52.6%

47.3%

K. Nishikori

2015

1-2

52.6%

47.3%

R. Nadal

2017

0-1

55.5%

46.9%

S. Wawrinka

2016

1-2

52.4%

46.5%

T. Berdych

2015

0-3

53.1%

45.7%

D. Thiem

2016

1-2

51.7%

45.5%

D. Ferrer

2015

0-3

53.1%

44.9%

P. Carreno Busta

2017

0-2

50.9%

42.7%

D. Goffin

2016

0-1

51.7%

40.4%

All players who have competed in the Nitto ATP Finals in the past three seasons have enjoyed winning more points than they have lost during the regular season. But only eight times out of 26 attempts has a player walked away with winning more than 50 per cent of their points at The O2.

Colombians served as alternates in 2016

Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah will make their Nitto ATP Finals debut this November at The O2. The Colombians clinched their place in the eight-player, eight-team field following the release of the draws for next week's ATP World Tour 500 tournaments in Beijing and Tokyo.

Cabal and Farah are the second team to qualify for the 2018 tournament, joining Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, whom they faced in the Australian Open final earlier this season.

In addition to their first Grand Slam final, the Colombians also reached three other championship matches in 2018. They won their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome and were runners-up at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires and Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.

Cabal, 32, and Farah, 31, first joined forces at the Futures level in 2004 and made their tour-level main draw debut in 2011 at Wimbledon. They have won 11 titles from 25 finals, highlighted by a season-high four titles in 2016. They served as alternates at the Nitto ATP Finals that year.

Argentinean star on the brink of clinching London berth

With just five weeks to go in the regular ATP World Tour season, five singles spots still remain up for grabs at the Nitto ATP Finals, the prestigious finale to be held at The O2 in London from 11-18 November. Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have already clinched their berths, but this week Juan Martin del Potro could qualify for the tournament for the first time since 2013.

Del Potro, who has played at the Nitto ATP Finals on four previous occasions (2009-10, 2012-13), will secure his spot by reaching this week’s China Open final in Beijing, where fellow contenders in the ATP Race To London, Alexander Zverev (fifth place) and Fabio Fognini (11th place), compete. On his season finale debut in 2009, the first year it was held at The O2 in London, Del Potro finished as runner-up to Nikolay Davydenko.

View Latest ATP Race To London Standings

At this week’s second ATP World Tour 500 tournament, the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2018, sixth-placed Marin Cilic, eighth-placed Kevin Anderson and 10th-placed Kei Nishikori attempt to add valuable points in Tokyo. Cilic is bidding to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals for the fourth straight year, while two-time Tokyo champion Nishikori competed in London from 2014-2016. Anderson, who is currently in the final automatic qualification berth, is hoping to clinch his first participation.

The maths is simple this week. For Del Potro (4,910 points), Zverev (4,365), Cilic (3,815) and Anderson (3,450) any points that they accrue this week in Beijing or Tokyo will be added directly to their current ATP Race To London tallies and improve their chances of clinching a berth at the Nitto ATP Finals. Zverev, 21, is aiming to compete in London for the second consecutive year.

In the case of 11th-placed Fognini (2,045), who lost to Bernard Tomic in the Chengdu Open final on Sunday, the Italian will need to reach the Beijing semi-finals (with 180 points on offer) this week in order to start to add points. Fognini, after one of the best seasons of his career, is currently 1,405 points behind Anderson.

Argentine clinches spot at the Nitto ATP Finals with QF appearance
Juan Martin del Potro has switched continents, but he's playing the same type of gritty tennis that carried him to his second Grand Slam final last month at the US Open.

The top-seeded Argentine advanced to the China Open quarter-finals in Beijing on Wednesday, denying Russian Karen Khachanov 6-4, 7-6(4). The 22-year-old Khachanov was slugging evenly with Del Potro for much of the second-round match, but a couple dips in his level cost him a chance at the upset.

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Khachanov was broken to start the match, and Del Potro didn't face a break point in the opener. The two were even in the second until the 11th game, when Khachanov felt the nerves and netted a backhand on double break point.

The Argentine, while serving for the match at 6-5, 15/40, erased two break points and had a match point. But Khachanov broke for the first time when Del Potro shanked a forehand.

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In the tie-break, though, Del Potro smashed his 11th ace on his second match point to advance. With the win, Del Potro qualifies for his fifth season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, to be held 11-18 November at The O2 in London. Del Potro last qualified for London in 2013.

But this season has marked a return to the top for the Argentine, who leads the ATP World Tour with 34 hard-court wins and reached his career-high ATP Ranking of No. 3 in August. Del Potro, now No. 4, will next meet Serbian Filip Krajinovic, who beat Spain's Feliciano Lopez 7-6(5), 6-3.

Argentinean star joins Nadal, Djokovic and Federer in London

Juan Martin del Potro becomes the fourth singles player to qualify for the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals, clinching his place in the elite field for the first time since 2013 — and the fifth year overall — with victory over Karen Khachanov on Wednesday to reach the China Open quarter-finals. The Argentinean will join World No. 1 Rafael Nadal of Spain, Serbia’s five-time former champion Djokovic and six-time former titlist Roger Federer of Switzerland at The O2 in London from 11-18 November.

"I'm happy to get in London after five years," said Del Potro. "It will be an amazing moment for me. I will love to be part of the eight players, to make that event. Of course, it's a very special tournament for us. I will be excited to do well in London."

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The 30-year-old Del Potro first qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals in 2008, when the event was held in Shanghai, finished runner-up to Nikolay Davydenko in the championship match the following year in the first edition at The O2, and later clinched his spot again in 2012-13.

Almost nine years after he first broke into the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings, the Tandil native returned to the elite on 15 January 2018. On a run of 15 straight matches, Del Potro beat three Top 10 players en route the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC crown in Acapulco (d. Anderson) and recorded the 400th match win of his career in the BNP Paribas Open semi-finals (d. Raonic) en route to his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy in Indian Wells (d. Federer). He also finished runner-up at the ABS Classic in Auckland (l. to Bautista Agut) and the Abierto de Tenis Mifel presentado por Cinemex in Los Cabos (l. to Fognini), prior to moving up to a career-high No. 3 on 13 August.

This year, Del Potro advanced to his second Grand Slam championship final in New York City, nine years on from lifting the 2009 US Open crown (d. Federer). He also reached the Roland Garros semi-finals for a second time (also 2009) and the Wimbledon quarter-finals (l. to Nadal both times).

With four singles spots left up for grabs, Germany’s Alexander Zverev is next in line to qualify for the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals for the second consecutive season, followed by Marin Cilic of Croatia, Dominic Thiem of Austria and South Africa’s Kevin Anderson. Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, and Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah are the only doubles team to have clinched a place at London in November.

The Nitto ATP Finals welcomes more than 250,000 fans to The O2 arena annually, as well as generating global viewership figures reaching an average of 95 million viewers each year, as the ATP’s best eight singles players and doubles teams compete over eight days at the biggest indoor tennis tournament in the world.

Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares will return to The O2 for the third straight year, qualifying for the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals on Thursday after reaching the Rolex Shanghai Masters semi-finals.

Murray and Soares are the third team to clinch a spot at the season finale, joining Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, and Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in London from 11-18 November. They have reached the semi-finals at the Nitto ATP Finals for the past two years – in 2016 (l. to Klaasen/Ram) and 2017 (l. to Kontinen/Peers).

The British-Brazilian duo has captured three crowns from five ATP World Tour finals in 2018, including triumphs at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC (d. Bryan/Bryan), the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. (d. M. Bryan/Roger-Vasselin) and the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati (d. Cabal/Farah). They also finished runners up at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Doha (l. to Marach/Pavic) and the Fever-Tree Championships in London (l. to Kontinen/Peers).

Murray, 32, and Soares, 36, became the third first-year pairing to clinch the year-end No. 1 ATP Doubles Team Rankings in November 2017. Soares will be making his fifth appearance at The O2, previously qualifying in 2013 and ‘14 with Austria’s Alexander Peya. Murray, 31, made his tournament debut in 2015 alongside Peers.