ATP Tour

Mensik & Fonseca lead the Live Race To Jeddah, but who else is in Next Gen ATP Finals contention?

With the grass-court season over for another year, the qualification battle for the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF is starting to heat up.

The 19-year-old Czech Jakub Mensik and 18-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca are first and second, respectively, in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah and continued to set the pace by reaching the third round at Wimbledon. American Learner Tien won his first match at the grass-court major to further cement third spot. All three players competed in the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF in 2024, when Fonseca became the sixth champion at the 20-and-under event.

With the Top 8 players in the Live Race To Jeddah qualifying for the tournament, held in Jeddah from 17-21 December, there are a host of names aiming to compete in Saudi Arabia for the first time.

Croatian Dino Prizmic and Belgian Alexander Blockx have both reached ATP Challenger Tour finals in the past fortnight. Prizmic climbed to fourth in the Live Race To Jeddah following his final run on clay in Milan, while fifth-placed Blockx reached the title match on hard courts in Winnipeg.

PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah

This week, American Nishesh Basavareddy (sixth), Mexican Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez (seventh) and Spaniard Martin Landaluce (eighth) are competing at tour-level events. Basavareddy, who played in Jeddah last year, is in action at the ATP 250 hard-court event in Los Cabos alongside wild card Pacheco Mendez. The 20-year-old Pacheco Mendez tasted success on home soil earlier this year when he reached the quarter-finals in Acapulco.

Landaluce is using a Next Gen Accelerator spot to gain entry into the main draw at the 250 event on clay in Gstaad. Players aged 20-and-under who are ranked in the Top 250 of the PIF ATP Rankings are eligible for one ATP 250 main draw spot, an effort to support young talent and their development pathway. The 19-year-old Landaluce, seeking his second tour-level win, is World No. 137.

Norwegian Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, 12th in the Live Race To Jeddah, is in main draw action at the ATP 250 tournament in Bastad after advancing through qualifying. The 18-year-old will be chasing his first tour-level win of the season in Sweden.