2024 ATP/WTA Season Preview - Rank 11-20
This is Part 4 of my 2024 ATP/WTA Season Preview. The other parts may be viewed here:
Special thanks to Tennis Abstract for many of the more obscure stats mentioned in this series of posts.
WTA
20. Caroline Garcia
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 40-27
2023 Highlights: Guadalajara SF, Beijing QF, Lyon F, Monterrey F
2023 Summary: The 2023 season wasn't a disaster for Garcia by any means, but it was a far cry from the previous year where she won Cincinnati, won the WTA Finals, and made the semis of the US Open. This year she got bounced in the first round of Cincinnati and the US Open, didn't qualify for the WTA Finals, and probably would have fallen out of the top 20 if not for a timely run to the Guadalajara semis. Now, it might just be a coincidence, but in February she lost the final in her hometown of Lyon by double-faulting on championship point and since then I think her game has never really recovered. She still got some wins, no doubt about it, but mainly against lower-ranked players; in fact, her only top-20 win of the season was against an injured Keys in Zhuhai.
2024 Outlook: Ask any WTA fan to name the best serve on tour, and they'll probably tell you Sabalenka or Rybakina (maybe Gauff if you're talking to an American). But it was actually Caroline Garcia who led the tour in aces this season, just as she did the year before, and her 80.8% hold rate is a smidge behind Sabalenka for tops in the WTA. Her problem, as has historically been the case, is her returning; she's dead-last in the top 50 for break rate, mostly because she insists on hugging the baseline or even standing inside it to return serve. I really don't understand this. No WTA player will miss the easy pop-ups Caro gives on a good portion of her returns, and she's more than athletic enough to just stand further back and take bigger cuts at the ball. Her ground game is also a portrait of stubbornness; she seemingly refuses to add any margin to her forehand no matter what kind of a day she's having, and she lost plenty of matches because of it this year. Her smothering offense is one of the most beautiful games on tour when it's on, but a lot of players are starting to figure out that they can outgrind Garcia and I seriously don't think she has a Plan B most of the time. She won't be afforded so many byes next year since she's starting at #20 instead of #4, so I think we could see Garcia drop out of the top 30.
19. Veronika Kudermetova
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 34-22
2023 Highlights: Tokyo W, Madrid SF, Rome SF, s'Hertogenbosch F
2023 Summary: Kudermetova wasn't quite able to improve on last season, where she finished at #9 in the world and just missed out on the WTA Finals. What she did manage to do in 2023 that she couldn’t accomplish in 2022 was win a title, and what a title it was: she beat Swiatek in the quarters, Pegula in the finals, and sandwiched in between those victories was a 3-and-a-half-hour slog against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. It was a breakthrough that erased the pain of losing 6 of her last 8 matches prior to Tokyo, including giving Venus Williams one of her 3 wins over the entire season. In all fairness to Kudermetova, though, that slump didn't last all year. She made the semis of both Rome and Madrid, and in grass season she dropped a heartbreaker to Alexandrova in the s'Hertogenbosch final.
2024 Outlook: Kudermetova plays the "Russian style" that I've mentioned in several other player profiles in this series: she has a big serve, she hits hard off both wings relentlessly, and... well, that's basically all she needs (okay, she's also pretty good at the net; she has a Wimbledon final in doubles, after all). When she's put on the run, she can come up with surprising angles on her passing shots, but her Plan A, B, and C all revolve around dictating play from the baseline. Some people might find her game one-dimensional, but if that dimension is good enough to beat Swiatek and Pegula in the same tournament, how big a problem is it, really? She kind of reminds me of Andrey Rublev minus the on-court tantrums, but she's a lot less consistent week-to-week than he is, and presumably that's why she hasn't had as much success. For the time being, I think she's ranked around where she should be, but look for her to score a few more big-name upsets next year.
18. Daria Kasatkina
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 39-25
2023 Highlights: Adelaide 2 F, Eastbourne F, Zhuhai SF, Montreal QF
2023 Summary: I’m just going to say it: Kasatkina is by far my favorite player on either tour, so I wouldn’t expect this to be at all objective. It isn’t easy being a top 20 player in the world while simultaneously producing the best behind-the-scenes WTA content on the web, but Dasha manages somehow. She didn’t win any titles in 2023, but she still made two finals and entertained crowds around the world all year with her crafty play. The best match of hers I saw was the late-night marathon against Elena Rybakina in the Montreal QFs; the match didn’t end until after 3 a.m. local time, and Kasatkina fought off 4 match points in the third set tiebreak before squandering one of her own and finally succumbing after 3 hours and 28 minutes. I was glued to my TV for the entire match and was absolutely gutted for Dasha when she lost, but it was a sign of better things to come; she finished the season strong, even making the semis of the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. Yes, all this was a step below her top-10 2022 season, but quite frankly what Kasatkina accomplished this season is incredible given her current personal situation. She has been unable to safely return to Russia for nearly 2 years now, due to her vocal opposition of the war in Ukraine and coming out as gay last summer.
2024 Outlook: If Dasha had the serve of pretty much any other player in the top 20, I’m convinced she’d have won a Slam by now. Unfortunately, she doesn’t, and I’ve literally seen her second serve drop below 60 mph at times. She makes up for it with excellent anticipatory skills and some of the WTA’s steadiest/cleverest groundstrokes, but not being able to win any free points off your serve – or your serve + 1 in Kasatkina’s case, even – just adds up in so many ways. I’m not sure if Dasha will rejoin the top 10 next year (I think there is a slim chance, but she’d need to win a ton of matches before clay season starts), but I’ll be cheering her on no matter what.
17. Belinda Bencic
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 31-13
2023 Highlights: Adelaide 2 W, Abu Dhabi W, Charleston F
2023 Summary: The reigning Olympic gold medalist looked like a world-beater early on, winning the titles in Adelaide and Abu Dhabi and making the final on the green clay of Charleston. She couldn't quite sustain that level down the stretch, but still posted very respectable results during the summer: R16 at both Wimbledon (where she came oh-so-close to beating Swiatek), R16 at the US Open, and the QFs in a rain-soaked National Bank Open. She was nowhere to be found after mid-September, which made a lot more sense after an announcement she made in November: she's pregnant! Belinda and her boyfriend Martin Hromkovic will welcome their first child sometime next year.
2024 Outlook: Belinda hasn't announced when, or if, she'll return to tennis, but I'm assuming it won't be until at least 2025. Should she decide to return, she’ll be following in the footsteps of a bunch of WTA players who have recently made successful comebacks as mothers (Serena, Vika, Svitolina, Maria, Wozniacki, hopefully Osaka and Kerber...). Wishing her all the best!
16. Liudmila Samsonova
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 34-24
2023 Highlights: Abu Dhabi F, Montreal F, Beijing F
2023 Summary: Poor Liudmila just couldn’t get over the finish line this year. Each of her 3 finals was a different tragedy: in Abu Dhabi, she blew 3 championship points against Bencic; in Montreal, she got completely screwed over by the scheduling and had to play her semi and final on the same day; in Beijing, she came up against an invincible version of Iga Swiatek who made 0 unforced errors the entire match. Tennis is a cruel sport, but ultimately Liudmila played great to make those finals in the first place, and she already has 4 titles so this isn’t an FAA-esque bugaboo or anything. Plus, this was still her career-best season, and she’s ending it as the unlikely Russian #1 (fun fact: despite representing Russia, Liudmila actually was born and raised in Italy). Lots of reasons for optimism within the Samsonova camp heading into 2024.
2024 Outlook: When Samsonova is on, you might wonder how she hasn’t won a Major already: she has the power of Rybakina, the dropshots of Hsieh Su-Wei, and she's nearly 6’ tall. When Samsonova is off, however, it’s a pretty harsh reality check. For Liudmila, the last couple years have been about shortening the ‘off’ stretches, if not weeding them out from her game altogether, and her game has been gradually becoming more and more stable. In fact, if she’d had an extra day of rest before playing Pegula in the Montreal Masters, she probably would have won the whole thing. She peaked at #12 in 2023, and I think 2024 is the year where she breaks into the top 10. It’s doable right off the bat if she has a good Australian summer; she’s not defending many points until Abu Dhabi in Feburary.
15. Qinwen Zheng
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 35-19
2023 Highlights: Zhengzhou W, Palermo W, Zhuhai F, US Open QF
2023 Summary: The “Queenwen” won two titles and was voted the WTA’s Most Improved Player in 2023. It’s a reflection of just how much she’s continued to up her game since her breakout 2022 season, and everything really came together in the second half of the year. There was one notable low point post-Wimbledon for Qinwen, and that was when her coach Wim Fissette announced he was jumping ship from the team to work with Naomi Osaka in 2024. It was a disrespectful move from the tour veteran, and Zheng did her best to make him look silly for it for the rest of the year. She went 8-2 after Fissette left, winning the title in Zhengzhou and making the final of the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai.
2024 Outlook: Anything can happen on the WTA Tour, but I think Zheng will be the next player to win her maiden Slam. She’s powerful, she’s fast, and having just turned 21 in October, she has tons of time to improve. The one Achilles’ heel in her game right now is her second serve; too often, it sits up just a bit too much to start the point on even terms. The Fissette drama was a tough break for Qinwen, but she’s reunited with her former coach Pere Riba for 2024. He just finished coaching Coco Gauff to her maiden Slam title (presumably, he’s leaving her camp to turn the coaching reins entirely over to Brad Gilbert), so I think Qinwen’s in good hands. Zheng should be aiming for a top 10 finish next year, and honestly anything less will probably be a disappointment for her. As a fun aside, one underrated rivalry that’s developed lately is the one between Zheng and Liudmila Samsonova; they played each other 3 times in 2023, and Samsonova leads the career H2H 3-2.
14. Petra Kvitova
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 30-13
2023 Highlights: Miami W, Berlin W, Wimbledon R16, Indian Wells QF
2023 Summary: It had been 5 years since Petra Kvitova last won a WTA 1000, but she finally ended the drought this spring. Petra pulled off a massive upset in Miami to deny Elena Rybakina the Sunshine Double, and anyone who doesn’t think that was an upset is forgetting just how unstoppable Rybakina looked to begin the year. A foot injury kept Petra out for most of the clay season, but she brought her best tennis to the grass courts: she won a title in Berlin, the 31st of her career (!), and made the 4th round at Wimbledon 2 weeks later. Kvitova’s classic lefty game is so aesthetically pleasing to watch, and after her comeback from the knife attack she suffered in 2016 she’s a perpetual fan favorite.
2024 Outlook: Considering people were literally asking Kvitova if she was going to retire last year, I think she’s happy with her performance in 2023. That said, she turns 34 this year, and I’m curious how much longer she’ll remain in the top 20. I think she looked a little slower than normal to end this season (granted, that may have been due to the aforementioned foot problem she was suffering from) and she looked positively flat in her 2nd round defeat to the returning Caroline Wozniacki at the US Open. Kvitova still has a top-5 forehand on tour, and she’ll always be dangerous on faster surfaces where she can just hit right through her opponents, but I fear people are going to start exploiting her footspeed and stamina this upcoming year. Petra won’t go quietly, to be sure, but Miami may have been her last big title.
13. Jelena Ostapenko
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 37-22
2023 Highlights: Birmingham W, Australian Open QF, US Open QF, Rome SF
2023 Summary: In 2023 alone, Jelena Ostapenko 1) argued Hawkeye Live calls that were a foot inside the line at the Australian Open, 2) somehow got the Ice Queen Elena Rybakina to complain to the umpire about her behavior in Rome, and 3) mouthed off at fans multiple times for disturbing her concentration, including this amazingly vulgar quote. Logically, I have no reason whatsoever to cheer for Jelena, yet she’s one of my favorite players. Yes, she’s absolutely a sore loser, and kind of a spoiled brat, but she has this hilariously chaotic energy and I get the sense she doesn't care one bit what other people think about her anyway. What she does care about, apparently, is dressing up in some of the wildest outfits on tour (you’re going to have to Google them because I can’t possibly choose just one or two to link to this article) and taking massive swings at every ball landing on her side of the court, consistency be damned. Her three-set win against Iga Swiatek at the US Open, a night match on Ashe that improved her record against the #1 to 4-0, was an instant classic and a reminder of how the Latvian blasted her way to the French Open title as a 19-year-old in 2017. Conversely, the 6-0, 6-2 defeat she suffered to Coco Gauff in the next round was maybe a reminder of why that’s still the only Major of her career.
2024 Outlook: I’ve seen people downplay the potential of mercurial players like Jelena by pointing out it’s extremely difficult to redline for an entire tournament, but I don’t think that’s the right way of looking at it. If you’re good enough to beat most players with your average level, and capable of beating anybody with your peak level, winning a big title is less about playing out of your mind for an entire tournament and more about playing out of your mind for one or two matches without throwing in a random stinker in the remaining four or five. The interesting thing about Ostapenko is that despite her shaky consistency match-to-match, her consistency year-to-year really isn’t that bad. She’s been in the top 30 for 2.5 years straight, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. She’s basically the best player in the world for 1 or 2 weeks a year, and is a complete wildcard for the rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a down year in 2024, but honestly, I also wouldn’t be surprised if she somehow won another Slam. I’m not saying it’s probable per se, but Jelena did make two Major QFs this season, and with her game anything is possible.
12. Madison Keys
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 33-15
2023 Highlights: Eastbourne W, United Cup W, US Open SF, Wimbledon QF
2023 Summary: Madison Keys came flying out of the blocks in 2023, just like she did in her resurgent 2022 season. She went a perfect 5-0 in the United Cup (the caveat being she was the world #11 playing #2 singles for Team USA, and won’t be playing it in 2024) and made the quarters in Dubai before slowing down a bit. During grass season she stormed to the Eastbourne title without dropping a set, but her two most entertaining matches of the year came in the final two Majors. In Wimbledon, she was down 3-6, 1-4, 30-40 against Russian phenom Mirra Andreeva but pulled off a miraculous comeback to win the match in three sets. On home turf at the US Open, it was Keys’s turn to be on the receiving end of a miraculous comeback; she bageled Sabalenka in the opening set of the semifinal and was serving for the match at 5-4 in the second, but she tightened up and eventually lost the second set tiebreak. Despite being up a break in the third she again couldn’t consolidate her advantage, finally losing a third-set tiebreak and what would have been her first chance at a Major title since the 2017 US Open.
2024 Outlook: Madison hasn’t won another match since that heartbreaker against Sabalenka, and hopefully she uses the offseason to physically and mentally reset. I feel like we’ve been hearing about Keys for forever now (thanks, ESPN Slam coverage), but in reality she’s only 28 and she still has the game to win a Slam. The problem, and I feel like I’ve repeated the same thing like 5 times in this post already, is her consistency. Just like Ostapenko, she can beat anyone when she’s on, but can’t do it reliably enough to win many tournaments. Unlike Ostapenko though, she doesn’t have a Slam, and that adds an extra dimension of nerves that showed up against Sabalenka in the US Open semi. She’s also currently being coached by her fiancé Bjorn Fratangelo, which on one hand seems like a terrible idea for any relationship but on the other hand led to her best results of the season. Maybe a coach who knows her on a spouse-level personal basis is what Keys needs to unlock her full potential? I mean, she could be doing a lot worse than #12 in the world, but it feels like she’s been frustratingly close to a Major breakthrough (with a capital M) for the last decade.
11. Beatriz Haddad Maia
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 35-22
2023 Highlights: Zhuhai W, Roland Garros SF, Rome QF
2023 Summary: Notably absent was the prowess on grass that won her 13 straight matches on the surface last year, but Beatriz Haddad Maia still managed to make history in 2023. In June, she became the first Brazilian woman to ever reach the top 10 of the WTA rankings, and in her final event of the year she produced a clean sweep of both the singles and doubles fields at the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai (I’m really glad I can stop typing out that weird name in these summaries, by the way). Bia’s rise to the upper echelon of women’s tennis has been as unprecedented as it was dramatic, and this year what stood out was her sudden penchant for clay. She was below .500 at tour level on the dirt prior to 2023, but amazingly she managed to make both the quarters at Rome and the semis at Roland Garros, leaving a string of unbelievable battles in her wake. Haddad Maia’s 3-hour, 40-minute clash against Kalinina in Rome was the second-longest women’s match of the year – second only to her 3-hour, 51-minute match against Sorribes Tormo at the French. She played a whopping 26 3-set matches this year, winning 17 of them.
2024 Outlook: Since returning, hopefully cleanly, from a 10-month doping suspension in 2019, Haddad Maia has built her entire game around being one of the fiercest and fittest competitors on the WTA Tour. Her serve is very good but not great, her groundstrokes are extremely solid without ever really going for the lines, and she uses her long wingspan to extend rallies for as long as she needs to (for people more acquainted with the ATP, I think a good comparable would be Albert Ramos-Vinolas). Yes, she made the top 10 this year, but I can’t help but wonder if she still hasn’t reached her ceiling; at 6’1” and lefty, her serve should be a bigger weapon than it is, and I bet a big contributing factor to her subpar grass season was fatigue from playing so many long matches on clay. I wonder if she’ll try to inject more offense into her game this offseason and focus on shortening points when she can. Winning extra free points never hurt anyone, and the way she steamrolled the Zhuhai draw tells me that she should be aiming for loftier goals than just sticking around the #11-20 range.
ATP
20. Ugo Humbert
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 33-24 (14-2 in Challengers)
2023 Highlights: Metz F, Shanghai QF, Basel SF
2023 Summary: The fact that Humbert was even able to play a full season of tennis, let alone finish in the top 20, is impressive given the injury he suffered in Montpellier. It was scary to see him go down that hard, and nice to see ADF react with such genuine compassion for a guy who has had some terrible injury luck early on in his career. Ugo didn’t post amazing results to start his comeback (although that may have just been because he’s not so great on clay) but he was in the best form of his life by season’s end. Save for a lone loss to Berrettini at the US Open, he didn’t lose to an opponent out of the top 20 from Washington D.C. onward, and he ended the season in the perfect way by claiming the title in his birthplace of Metz. The victory also allowed him to break into the top 20 for the first time in his career and end the season as the French #1.
2024 Outlook: Humbert plays like how a lot of Canadian tennis fans wish Denis Shapovalov played. His lefty serve is swingy, his backhand is stable, and he seems to be able to conjure winners out of nowhere with his forehand. Like any shotmaker he has matches, or bunches of matches, where he struggles with consistency, but things came together for him in the back half of 2023 in a way that we haven’t seen for years. Now, I wouldn't really expect any hometown heroism from him at RG or the Olympics next year (he has a 28% career winrate on clay), but another top 20 finish is very doable if he can remain healthy.
19. Nicolas Jarry
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 38-19
2023 Highlights: Santiago F, Geneva F, Roland Garros R16
2023 Summary: Standing at a towering 6’6” with gunshots for groundies, Nicolas Jarry is the tallest player on the ATP top 100 and quite possibly the hardest-hitting, too. It’s been a long road back for the Chilean #1 since, ahem, a year-long suspension for doping in 2020 (I’m going to assume Jarry is achieving these results cleanly), but his game is certainly in full flow now and he has the titles to prove it. His victory in Geneva was particularly impressive, beating Ruud, Zverev, and Dimitrov back-to-back-to-back, but it was his emotional homecoming crown in Santiago that will immortalize Nico's place in Chilean tennis history. Jarry’s family has organized the Santiago event for years, and his grandfather Jaime Fillol (himself a former player) was on hand to present Jarry with the trophy.
2024 Outlook: Jarry’s serve is one of the best on tour, his forehand is monstrous, and his once-dodgy backhand is suddenly looking like a complementary weapon instead of a liability. He’s not the fleetest of foot, which I’d assume is why his best results have all been on clay, but he has the power to blast anyone off the court when he’s in the zone. The question, as always, is where does he go from here? His game was good enough for 19th in the world in 2023, but what can he do to improve further? I’m not sure there’s much of a clear answer. Jarry’s movement will never be good enough for him to have a great defensive game, and his first-strike mentality has an inherent streakiness to it. I certainly think Jarry can win more titles in 2024, and depending on which ones they are he may see a rankings bump. I don’t think he’s destined for the top 10 or anything, though.
18. Cameron Norrie
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 36-25
2023 Highlights: Rio W, Auckland F, Buenos Aires F, Indian Wells QF
2023 Summary: Cam Norrie is one of the tour’s most unflappable players, which in conjunction with his unique swings makes him a personal favorite of mine to watch. At first, he looked poised to pick up where he left off his excellent 2022 campaign: he went undefeated in the United Cup and cruised through the 250 in his hometown of Auckland before Richard Gasquet stunned him with an improbable comeback in the final. He won his only title of the year in Rio against a seriously hobbled Alcaraz (who still managed to drag the match late into the third set), made the quarters of Indian Wells, and that’s kind of when things started going downhill. He couldn’t buy a win for the second half of the season, and although he finishes in the top 20 for a third consecutive year his ranking will quickly take a nosedive if he can’t defend his points in the first half of 2024.
2024 Outlook: It’s hard for Norrie to see many silver linings after winning 4 of his last 17 matches, but it’s worth pointing out that he got some pretty terrible draws in the bigger events this year. The names that dealt him early exits at the Majors/1000s were a who’s who of players who made vast improvements this year (Eubanks, Arnaldi, Zhang, de Minaur, Monfils...), and a lot of them seemed to peak in the exact tournament where they faced Norrie. I do think he’s maybe lost some ground to the up-and-comers that have emerged from the woodwork lately, but I also don’t think the situation is as dire as I made it sound in the summary section. Norrie should be good for another top-30 finish at the least, if not an outright bounce-back season.
17. Ben Shelton
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 25-24 (2-1 in Challengers)
2023 Highlights: Tokyo W, US Open SF, Australian Open QF
2023 Summary: Ardent followers of the game knew Ben Shelton was one to watch heading into 2023, but few could predict just how quickly he'd make an impact on the global tennis landscape. He made the quarters of the Australian and won his maiden title in Tokyo, but it was at the US Open where Shelton really made his mark. He electrified the New York crowds in September, showcasing his youthful exuberance and relentless aggression to reach the semis before bowing out against eventual champ Novak Djokovic. Almost overnight, the 21-year-old has suddenly become the face of American men's tennis: ESPN listed him as their pick to win the US Open in 2024, he's been profiled in GQ Sports, and he now has nearly 600 thousand followers on Instagram.
You'll notice none of those facts I listed have anything to do with Ben's actual results, and that's where things get interesting. Here's a trivia question: how many times did Shelton win consecutive matches between his quarterfinal run at the AO and his semifinal run at the USO? The answer is zero, which is a stark reminder that Shelton had to spend most of 2023 figuring out how to get wins on tour. He had never played a match on red clay or grass prior to this year, and even on hard he dropped a few matches when he decided to go for broke in neutral rallies one too many times. His play post-USO was excellent, but I think there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the flashy American.
2024 Outlook: To be absolutely clear, Shelton’s talent is undeniable. He’s already one of the most athletic players on tour, he can serve 150 mph bombs, and his penchant for highlight reel shots means that he makes his opponents look positively silly on occasion. But I’d hold the phone (heh) on the predictions that he’s a shoo-in for the top 10 next year, a guaranteed future Slam winner, or anything like that. The reality is that Shelton had 3 excellent tournaments last year, all of which happened to be bigger events, and for the rest of the year he was wildly inconsistent. He actually reminds me of Shapovalov in the early goings of his career, where the natural ability was apparent but the discipline was still very much undeveloped. So many players struggle with the opposite problem that when the odd Shelton or Shapo comes along, most people assume the tennis IQ and shot selection will come naturally even though that’s far from a given. This might be one of my dumbest predictions of the year, but I think Ben might be in for a sophomore slump. I don’t think Shelton will be inside the top 20, or maybe even the top 30, by the end of 2024.
16. Frances Tiafoe
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 39-21
2023 Highlights: United Cup W, Stuttgart W, Houston W
2023 Summary: Frances Tiafoe also went a perfect 5-0 in the United Cup, although like his compatriot Madison Keys he was facing everyone else’s #2 singles players and won’t be defending the points in 2024. But questionable team events aside, Frances Tiafoe genuinely had an excellent year. It was strange to think that Frances only had 1 career title to his name prior to 2023, and even stranger to think that it was 5 years ago, but Tiafoe quickly put the doubters to bed by winning 250s in Houston and Stuttgart (he now has 1 title on each surface). He also made some deep runs in the bigger tournaments too: he made the semis of Indian Wells, losing a close match to Daniil Medvedev, and made the quarterfinals of the US Open where he lost a 4-set thriller against Ben Shelton. Tiafoe even cracked the top 10 in the summer, an achievement that, funnily enough, also made me feel old. I first heard about Tiafoe in high school, in an old Grantland piece about ITF Futures (one of my all-time favorite pieces of tennis journalism, by the way). It’s crazy to think that, 10 years later, the teenage prodigy whose name was constantly misspelled in that article has become one of the best tennis players in the world.
2024 Outlook: When Tiafoe started slumping in the years after his first title, I honestly wondered if he was ever going to fulfill his potential. Silly me. This is a player who’s worked hard to answer the questions surrounding his game and work ethic, and it was great to see him get rewarded for it in 2023. Both his groundstrokes have rather unorthodox technique, but his forehand is whippy enough to create angles out of nowhere and his backhand isn’t the glaring weakness it was when he first showed up on tour. His serve is one of the best in the game, and on the other side of the coin he’s excellent at putting deep returns right at the server’s feet (especially off his flatter backhand wing). He tries a lot of dropshots, some more successful than others, but he sometimes wins even when his opponent sees it coming because he’s one of the fastest players on tour. Maybe his only weakness is his volleying, but he doesn’t come forward that much. He can easily mop up a couple more 250s in 2024, and I can see him pushing for the top 10 again, but he’s just a bit too unstable from the baseline to really stick there.
15. Karen Khachanov
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 34-18
2023 Highlights: Zhuhai W, Australian Open SF, French Open QF, Miami Masters SF
2023 Summary: Karen Khachanov had a lot of tennis fans convinced early in his career that they were watching the second coming of Marat Safin. Personally, when I saw Khachanov steamroll Djokovic in the final of the 2018 Paris Masters, I was certain he was a future #1. Fast forward 5 years later: that Masters title is still the most prestigious of Karen's career, and until late this year it was still the most recent, too. This year was marred by some horrible injury luck: after making the semis of the Australian and the quarters of the French, Khachanov suffered a sacral fracture (by the way, I have no idea how this happens from playing tennis) that kept him sidelined until the US Open. Although Karen finally broke his title drought in Zhuhai in the fall, I think he's going to be frustrated looking back on the year. He was finally looking like a top 10 player again after a few years of spinning his tires, but instead he once again finds himself on the outside looking in despite posting some excellent results.
2024 Outlook: The issue with Khachanov is not so much his consistency – he has hovered in the #11-30 range for many years now, and is almost always good for a few wins in every tournament – but his lack of an X factor. When he beat Tsitsipas in Miami this year, that was his first win over a top 10 player in 24 tries. That's an absurd stat for someone who's hovered near the top 10 himself for years, but it also says a lot about his game. He’s solid in all aspects but not very fast, and oddly I don’t think he really pulls the trigger enough and looks to end points outright. His forehand is his main weapon and it’s as hard and heavy as you’d expect from someone of his stature, but his extreme Western grip means it can sit up a little too much and his Ernests Gulbis-style windup means it can break down when he’s put on the run. He just overwhelms most lower-ranked players he faces, but power without purpose doesn’t work against the game's elite, and it certainly isn't enough against players like Alcaraz, Sinner, Medvedev, etc., who are happy to absorb incoming pace and redirect the ball to whatever corner they please. I expect another #11-20 finish from Khachanov next year... no higher, no lower.
14. Grigor Dimitrov
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 41-21
2023 Highlights: Paris F, Geneva F, Shanghai SF
2023 Summary: I think a lot of people were subconsciously expecting 2023 to be the year where Dimitrov would be firmly pushed out of the spotlight to make room for the youngsters on tour. Instead, we all got treated to the Dimitrov Renaissance in the second half of the year. These are the players who have beaten Grigor since the French Open: Zverev (x4), Alcaraz, Rune, Evans (during his D.C. title run), Sinner, Rublev, Medvedev, and Djokovic. Dimitrov has gone 27-11 in that span with 5 top-10 wins, and in his last event of the year beat Medvedev, Hurkacz, and Tsitsipas to make the final of the Paris Masters. Instead of quietly fading into the background, suddenly Dimitrov finds himself back in the top 15.
2024 Outlook: Dimitrov’s strengths are very well-known by now: he has an excellent serve, his inside-out forehand is reminiscent of you-know-whose when it’s on, and I think he has the best backhand slice on tour by a wide margin. His detractors will point to his backhand as an obvious weakness, but honestly the bigger weaknesses are his mental inconsistency and his injury proneness. Save for a select few runs in his career, it seems like every time Dimitrov finds his best form he either follows it up with a shockingly lacklustre performance in the next match or his body lets him down. Even in his Paris run this year his left leg was heavily strapped, and he seemed exhausted in the finals against Djokovic. This leads me to the main reason why I don’t think Dimitrov will be able to put on a repeat performance in 2024: he’s 32 but still plays like he’s 22. Grigor just throws himself around the court, sometimes literally, with reckless abandon, and while it gets results it clearly taxes his body way more than is necessary. I think it would be in his best interest to really start leaning into the crafty-veteran Dan Evans MO and start winning more points with the mind instead of the body; he’s got the tennis IQ for it, and it would make it a lot easier for him to stay healthy than the punishing style of play he currently employs.
13. Tommy Paul
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 41-27 (3-1 in Challengers)
2023 Highlights: Australian Open SF, Toronto SF, Acapulco F, Eastbourne F
2023 Summary: Tommy Paul seriously upped his game this year, and he probably would’ve ended up with a title if not for some terrible luck in finals. In Eastbourne he suffered a hip injury early on against Cerundolo, and in Acapulco he had to play de Minaur the day after a 3-and-a-half hour epic with Taylor Fritz. He still managed to push both finals to 3 sets, which tells you a lot about the kind of competitor Paul is, and the kind of athlete; while he got a bit of draw help to reach his first Slam semi in Melbourne, he was on his game for pretty much the whole season. He even managed a win against World #1 Carlos Alcaraz in Toronto before bowing out in the semis against Sinner.
2024 Outlook: Earlier in the year Paul won a pivotal match against Roberto Bautista Agut at the Australian, and in a lot of ways I think you could consider him to be this generation's version of RBA. Tommy has a very interesting, subtle game, and to be honest the first few times I watched him I didn’t think much of it. From the eye test, his serve is solid but not Fritz or Shelton level, he doesn’t hit the ball as huge or as spinny as some of the other Americans, and he has this massive windup on his forehand that always makes me think the ball is going to sail 10 feet out. It hardly ever does, though, and it turns out that in addition to being one of the tour’s most tenacious customers he’s also pretty darn good at putting the ball exactly where he wants. Bautista Agut peaked at #9 and made the semis of Wimbledon, and I think Paul’s got a similar ceiling (I mean, he’s already got the Major semi under his belt). He’s defending over 1000 points in the first 2 months of the season, though, so his work will be cut out for him.
12. Alex De Minaur
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 46-26
2023 Highlights: Acapulco W, Toronto F, London F, Los Cabos F
2023 Summary: Yet another player who made an unexpected level-up in 2023. Alex de Minaur won the first 500-level tournament of his career in Acapulco and made 3 more finals over the course of the season (losing to a top-5 player in each), the biggest of which was his first Masters final in Toronto. Plenty of fans still have doubts about how long he’ll be able to keep up his defense/sprinting-oriented playing style before his body gives out, but for the time being it’s getting results. The Acapulco title was the 7th of his career, he managed 5 top-10 wins in 2023, and he was consistent right up to the bitter end too, making the quarters of both Tokyo and Paris. He also beat Andy Murray 4 separate times this year, which doesn’t really say anything about his level but is a stat I wanted to include because I felt bad for Andy. Poor guy.
2024 Outlook: Scroll about two comments down on any YouTube video of de Minaur highlights and you’ll find someone calling him a pusher. He’s not. What he is, however, is a counterpuncher who plays extremely flat off both wings, which allows him to make life difficult for his opponents in some unconventional ways. First, his ability to take the ball on the rise is incredible, and since his shots have so little spin, they bounce low and penetrate through the court quickly even if they don’t look all that fast. Second, he can’t crank the ball at 100 mph like Sinner or Alcaraz, but he injects pace very well and a solid fastball will still catch a batter off-guard if he’s expecting a change-up (disclaimer: I don’t actually watch baseball). In short, the Demon has weapons, and this year he even seemed to be trying to develop more on the fly; it looked like he was charging the net a lot more, but his volleys are still very much a work in progress.
Now, can de Minaur use these weapons to kick it up another notch next year and crack the top 10? That’s a different question entirely, and I’m inclined to say no. He’s able to swat away most lower-ranked players and trouble the top guys if they’re having an off day, but he still doesn’t have the weapons to really put the match on his racquet most days. Assuming they were in decent form, I’d still favor any of the current top 10 in a match against de Minaur. I think there’ll be some regression from him in 2024.
11. Casper Ruud
2023 Tour-Level W-L: 36-23
2023 Highlights: Estoril W, Roland Garros F, Rome SF, Bastad SF
2023 Summary: Okay, so a repeat performance of 2022 wasn’t in the cards for Ruud (quick recap: 2 Slam finals, ATP Finals runner-up, YE#2), but Casper’s 2023 season wasn’t the end of the world like some would have you believe. He still won a title in Estoril, made the semis of the Rome Masters, and surprised many by defeating Rune and Zverev to defend all 1400 of his 2022 Roland Garros points. It’s hard to call any season that involves making a Major final a disappointment, but I don’t think Ruud will be too happy looking back on his 2023 campaign. He got bounced in the 2nd round of the US Open, had a bunch of losses to players well below his calibre, and missed the ATP Finals cutoff by a mile. 2024 is shaping up to be a very important year for the Norweigan #1. Will he reaffirm his place in the top 10, or continue this downward trend?
2024 Outlook: I’ve seen many a dismissive tennis fan downplay Ruud’s career achievements, e.g. by pointing out that all 10 of his career titles are clay 250s, but you could do a lot worse than making 3 Slam finals in 2 years. He’s still one of the best in the world on clay, but what concerns me is how his play on hardcourt took a nosedive this year (grass will pretty much always be a write-off for him). Could he just be tired from the grind of the tour? He’s played over 200 matches in the past 3 seasons, many of which have come against top opposition, and a lot of people expressed worry for his stamina when he embarked on an exhibition tour with Rafa over the 2022-23 offseason. As I type up this paragraph Casper’s currently taking part in the latest edition of Patrick Mouratoglou’s UTS Tour, so clearly he isn’t too worried. He might rejoin the top 10 in 2024, but with the current level of talent on tour I’m not sure a full-on Ruud resurgence is in the cards for next year.