Next Gen ATP Finals 2026: dates, format, Race and past winners

The Next Gen ATP Finals bring together the best eight men of the season aged 20 and under, and the 2026 edition is played from 9 to 13 December at the PalaCalafiore in Reggio Calabria, with $2 million in prize money. The ATP announced the host on 9 September 2026. It returns the event to Italy, where it began in Milan in 2017, after three editions in Jeddah. The field is not settled yet: it comes from the Race to Reggio Calabria, which closes in mid-November, and on 19 October Rafael Jodar led it by almost 2,000 points. The event has also been the tour's test bed: live electronic line calling, video review and data from wearables were first tried here before spreading across the tour.

Who can play?

Every player has to be 20 or under throughout the 2026 calendar year, which in practice means born in 2006 or later. The limit was 21 and under from 2017 to 2023 and was lowered in 2024.

The selection rules changed for 2026. In 2024 and 2025 the top eight of the Race qualified. The 2026 ATP rulebook (section 4.04) takes the top seven of the Race instead and adds one wildcard chosen by the ATP; the wildcard has to meet the same age limit. The ATP had not named the wildcard by 19 October.

Participation is mandatory for the seven, with one exception: a player who has qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, as a direct entrant or as a designated alternate, is not obliged to play. A qualifier who withdraws before the pre-tournament media conference is replaced by the next player in the Race, and a direct entrant who refuses to take part without an injury or another good reason is fined $25,000.

The Race to Reggio Calabria

The Race is a season-only ranking restricted to eligible players: points from 2026 count, everything earlier does not. It works like the ATP Race that fills the field in Turin, is built from the same tournament points, and closes on the Monday after the last ATP Tour tournament of the year, the Nitto ATP Finals not counted. In 2026 that is the ATP 250 in Stockholm from 8 to 14 November, so the cut-off is Monday 16 November 2026; in 2025 the same rule put it on 10 November. Withdrawals can still change the eight after that date.

The table is the ATP's live Race on the afternoon of Monday 19 October, a tournament week, so it moves with every match won. Jodar reached his first Masters 1000 final in Shanghai on 18 October, where Alejandro Davidovich Fokina beat him 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4, and he left China ninth in the Race to Turin, just inside the qualifying places for the ATP Finals. If he qualifies for Turin, he is free to choose whether to play in Reggio Calabria.

Behind the top three the places are close. Fourth and twelfth were separated by 110 points on 19 October, and a fortnight earlier, in the Race of 5 October, Cinà, Schwaerzler, Blanch and Sakamoto stood fourth to seventh within 37 points of each other. Cinà is the only Italian in the top twelve.

How is the Next Gen ATP Finals scored?

The eight are split into two groups of four and play a round robin; each group's top two reach the semi-finals, where the winner of one group meets the runner-up of the other, and the semi-final winners play the final on 13 December. The two highest-ranked players head the groups, and seeds three to eight are drawn in pairs, as the format page explains. Ties in a group are separated by wins, then matches played, then head-to-head or, between three players, percentages of sets and games won.

The scoring is the event's signature and is written into the 2026 rulebook:

• best of five sets, each set first to four games with a margin of two;
• a tiebreak at three games all;
• no-ad scoring, so a game at deuce is settled by a single point.

The other rules are set by the organiser each year and have changed between editions; the organiser had not published the rules for 2026 by 19 October.

Those in force at the 2025 event were a three-minute warm-up on court, new balls every seven games, at most eight seconds between first and second serve, and 15 seconds between points instead of 25 after a rally of fewer than three shots. Players changed ends after the first three games, again at 3-2 and at the end of each set, with 90 seconds at the set break instead of 120. Spectators could move freely during the first three games and afterwards everywhere except in the zones behind the baselines. The server chose the service box on the deciding point.

The Next Gen ATP Finals award no ranking points, and the title does not count as an ATP Tour title; the prize money counts towards a player's earnings. Like the Davis Cup Final 8 in late November, it sits outside the points calendar, as the tour guide explains. The ATP has not published the breakdown of the $2 million.

Who has won the Next Gen ATP Finals?

Two champions, Sinner and Alcaraz, went on to win Grand Slam titles; Fonseca is the only one young enough to play again in 2026, and Tien has since risen to a career-high No. 12.