A historic year for Italian tennis is coming to a close. At the ATP (men) level, the World No. 1, Jannik Sinner, and two Slam finals won, as well as the two Slam finals of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori.

At the WTA (women's) level, the Roland Garros-Wimbledon finals pairing of Jasmine Paolini, who rose to No. 5 and Olympic gold with Sara Errani. For all these names there is a common denominator: the Finals, albeit in different places (for men in Turin, for women in Riyadh).

RACE ATP SINGLES
In this case Jannik Sinner, no matter what happens, is basically safe. First place can no longer escape him in any ranking: it will be at the end of the year and it will be at the close of the race to Turin, with a quota approaching ten thousand points in 2024 alone. So it will be the 2001 class from Sesto Pusteria who will appear at the Inalpi Arena in Turin as the number one seed. On the other side of the fence, there is also a second Italian who could still dream of Piedmont: Lorenzo Musetti, who would, however, need a “Jack Sock 2017-style” season finale to be able to catch up more than 1,000 points from eighth place in, essentially, a month (the Tuscan has 2,400; Novak Djokovic is on the verge of passing Andrey Rublev, who has 3,580).

RACE ATP DOUBLES
Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori have been at the Finals for a week. They secured their goal with victory in the ATP 500 in Beijing, which placed them in third place in the rankings that count the 2024 results alone. And it matters little that they lost in the quarters to Molteni/Gonzalez (sure, maybe that's a precedent that will weigh toward the Davis Cup should doubles be resorted to) in Shanghai: for them it is the crowning achievement of a season at the highest level. They stand at 5540, and theoretically they would have some chance of even finishing in first place with a win-only finish to the year. Even so, though, they would do just fine.

RACE WTA SINGLES
In the facts, Jasmine Paolini secured her passage to the Finals with Thursday's combination of results from Wuhan, with the quarterfinals reached and the fact that U.S. Emma Navarro can no longer continue. Considering Swiatek and Sabalenka unreachable (in the reverse order, though, at least in the Race), there is a chance for the Tuscan to duel for third place with Coco Gauff. An achieved goal, hers, that brings Italian women's tennis back to the splendor experienced, at least in terms of Finals, between 2010 and 2015 (four Italian participations, one by Francesca Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta, two by Sara Errani).

RACE WTA DOUBLES
The current 5045 points allow Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini to take advantage of the fourth position, in a ranking that is still quite short and could still see some changes between now and the start of the Riyadh Finals. A path, that of the Olympic champions, that has seen them make it to a Slam final, win two WTA 1000s, and now find themselves far more than firmly within the top four pairs in the world for 2024, with still presumably the chance in Ningbo (but much depends on Paolini in singles in Wuhan) to change the situation upward.