Number 1 ranking not priority says Nadal

ATP World Tour Finals is starting from Sunday. It will decide who among Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic ends the year 2019 as World No.1 tennis player. However, Spain’s Nadal has said on Friday that it has never been his goal to be first in the rankings. This time a tough competition is going on between the two players.

Nadal is current world number one

Nadal has reached London as World No-1 but he will have to win as many matches as possible to end the year at the same place as world number 2 Novak Djokovic is hot on his heels.The duo are separated by 640 points. Recently Djokovic came close to Nadal by winning the title of Paris Masters.

Nadal said, “Obviously, I would like to end the year as a No. 1 player, but that is not my personal goal. I don’t see things like this.” Nadal withdrew from the Paris Masters tournament due to injury last week. He said, “I started serving from yesterday, that too slow. My focus is on staying healthy at this time.”

Nadal has not been able to win ATP finals so far

Nadal has been able to qualify for the finals for the 15th consecutive time, but will be in search of his first title in the battle of the best 8 in the world. The 19-time Grand Slam winner said, “I am sure that I will compete well, but this tournament is what you play with the top players, so you have to be 100 percent prepared.”

Big 3 vary of NexGen challenge

Although Nadal and Djokovic split the Grand Slams amongst them in 2019, they will be vary of the challenge from the next generation players like Daniil Medvedev, Stephanos Tsitsipas who gave tough competition to the Big 3 throughout the year. Nadal will play in the first match on Monday with defending champion Alexander Zverev. Djokovic will play his first match against Beretini. In addition, Switzerland’s star player Roger Federer will start the tournament against the Dominic Thiem.