Earning one of the 8 places available at the World Tour Finals in London is always the aim of top players on the tennis circuit. It demands consistency across a number of tournaments and is a fitting end to the tennis calendar. Novak Djokovic leads the Race and has comfortably qualified, as have Swiss duo Roger Federer and Stanislas Warwinka. Rafael Nadal is the fourth and final player to have confirmed his spot at the O2, despite having missed recent tournaments through injury.
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The remaining four spots are essentially being contested by 9 players who will all be looking to make a push heading into the Asian swing. US Open finalists Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori have forced themselves into strong positions in the Race and Cillic ought to qualify. Nishikori still knows he has work to do and is playing in the Malaysian Open this week, knowing there are 250 points available to the winner.
Nishikori is joined in Kuala Lumpur by Ernests Gulbis, who despite being down in 13th in the race standings, still has an outside shot of reaching the Tour finals for the first time. The Latvian has never truly realised his true potential, but if he makes runs in Malaysia, followed by Tokyo, Shanghai and Paris, he could be a surprise qualifier.
At 8,9 and 10 respetively are Thomas Berdych, Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov. All of whom have shaky recent form and will need to pick up points to ensure qualification. None of them are playing this week, but will most likely be in the draw for the Tokyo 500 next week.
The Shenzhen Open is the other 250 tournament available for players chasing ranking points and that is where David Ferrer, currently sitting seventh in the race, has opted to head. He goes in as top seed and will target 250 points to maintain his seventh position. Andy Murray also plays in Shenzhen, taking a Wild Card which no doubt was inspired by a crack at qualifying for a tournament on home soil.
Murray has significant ground to make up on a few of his rivals, but the Asian swing has been productive for him in the past and he should be buoyed by the extra motivation of playing in front of his home crowd and ending a tough year on a high.
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