When was the last time the ‘Big Three’ all missed the ATP Finals? Djokovic, Nadal and Federer absent from 2024 event

For more than a decade, men’s tennis has been dominated by the ‘Big Three’ — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

However following the news that Djokovic will miss this year’s ATP Finals — which begins on November 10 in Turin —with injury, the 2024 edition of the event will be the first without any of the trio in quite some time.

Federer retired earlier this year and Nadal is winding down towards the same, which includes not heading to Italy for one of the only events the Spaniard has never won.

Indeed, the tennis landscape was quite different the last time the Finals took place without none of the Big Three, long before they earned that collective moniker.

The last ATP Finals without Federer, Nadal or Djokovic

It was back in 2001 that none of the Big Three competed at an ATP Finals event – though at the time it was called the Tennis Masters Cup.

Given that the trio weren’t known as the generational talents they would soon become at the time, the event was nonetheless loaded with talent from the era.

Lleyton Hewitt would win the event that he qualified for as the US Open champion that season, to the delight of his home country fans in Sydney where it was held that year. Andre Agassi, Gustavo Kuerten and Goran Ivanisevic were all also invited due to winning majors in 2001.

Pat Rafter, who won US Open titles prior to the 2001 Masters Cup also participated in the eight-man tournament, as did double Grand Slam champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Juan Carlos Ferrero, who would later go on to win a French Open.

The eighth participant was Sebastien Grosjean, who was the only player involved to never win a major.

So, from 2002 to 2023, that’s a 22-year streak (inclusive) of representation from at least one of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic.

When did the Big Three start winning ATP Finals titles?

Federer claimed his first two ATP Finals titles two years after Hewitt’s 2001 success, winning back-to-back events in 2003 and 2004 with both held in Houston, Texas.

By the time Djokovic claimed his first of what would become a record seven titles in Shanghai in 2008, Federer was up to four after winning the 2006 and 2007 editions in the same city.

Djokovic will go down in history as winning more than Federer, at seven to the Swiss star’s six, now that Federer has retired. Nadal, somewhat surprisingly, has never won the event.