Behind Fritz, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton and Sebastian Korda maintain U.S. depth on ATP Tour

Looking back, looking forward. With the 2024 ATP season in the books, Joel Drucker has nine notable storylines to consider over the next few weeks—before the next year of men's tennis begins. (On mobile devices, scroll down to read more ATP takeways; on desktop, you'll see additional entires on the left side of your screen.)

Less powerful off either side than Zverev or Ruud, de Minaur’s strengths are his footspeed and tenacity.

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Anyone who picks up a racquet would gladly settle to have built careers as successful as those of Alexander Zverev, Casper Ruud, and Alex de Minaur. But, of course, these three elite players are close enough to the top to hunger for that big-time breakthrough at a major.

Zverev (No. 2) and Ruud (No. 6) have rock-solid baseline games, collectively reached five Grand Slam singles finals (two for Zverev, three for Ruud) and won 35 ATP Tour titles.

“It's been an interesting year for me, especially after the injury,” said Zverev during the ATP Finals. “It was kind of my first year completely back competing at this level and competing for big tournaments.”

In a fantasy tennis lab, concoct an extraordinary player by combining Zverev’s backhand and Ruud’s forehand. That said, these two have established themselves as top eight mainstays.

For de Minaur (No. 9), ’24 was the first time he’s finished the year inside the top ten. Less powerful off either side than Zverev or Ruud, de Minaur’s strengths are his footspeed and tenacity.

“It’s been a goal of mine for a while to be able to qualify here for the year-end final,” said the 25-year-old Australian. “It's kind of a reward for consistency throughout the whole year. That's something that I've always wanted to be a part of.”

It will be fascinating to see how these three continue to contend – both in seeking greater results and in fending off ambitious challengers.