Every November, the men’s tennis season ends in Turin. Eight singles players and eight doubles teams get invited, and only one of each walks away with the trophy. This year, it runs from November 15 to 22 at the Inalpi Arena, an indoor hard court, and it’s the sixth straight year the event has been held there.
Jannik Sinner comes in as the defending singles champion while Harri Heliövaara and Henry Patten hold the doubles title. One group match can change the whole week, because it decides who lands the easier road to the semifinals.
The round-robin format
Most tournaments send a player home after one loss. At the Finals, a player gets three group matches to sort it out. The eight singles players are split into two groups of four, and everybody plays the other three in the group. The top two from each group go through to the semifinals, where a group winner meets the other group’s runner-up. A bettor with a sports betting app open during the week will usually find markets on the group winners, along with the one on the title, and those odds shift after every group match.
Seeding follows the rankings, with the top seed in one group and the second seed in the other. The remaining players are drawn into the groups in pairs. The group stage fills the first six days, with the semifinals on Saturday and the final on Sunday. The opening day is rarely decisive. A player who loses to the top seed on Sunday still has two matches left to rescue the week.
Who is in the field
The field is made up of the season’s best. The top seven in the Race to Turin after the Paris Masters qualify, and Grand Slam winners ranked just outside that group can claim a place, too. Sinner locked up a spot in July after reaching the Wimbledon final, and Alexander Zverev followed in August.
By early October, Carlos Alcaraz had joined them, while Ben Shelton and Flavio Cobolli were still chasing the last places in Shanghai. Two alternates wait in the wings for the singles field, and one steps in if a player pulls out hurt. The Finals pull together most of the major tennis stars of the year, which is why even the group matches tend to feel like late-round meetings.
How the matches are scored
Singles matches are best of three sets, with a tiebreak in every set, including the third. A deciding set ends at six games all. Doubles are shorter, and the no-ad format means the deciding point at deuce is played with the receiving team choosing the side.
Two no-ad sets are played, and if the teams split them, a match tiebreak settles the result. Eight doubles teams follow the same group structure as the singles field and Heliövaara and Patten qualified for it back in July.
Watching from the US
Turin is roughly six hours ahead of the East Coast and nine ahead of the West Coast once US clocks have gone back. The matches are played in an afternoon session and an evening session, which means East Coast fans get a morning and mid-afternoon schedule.
Someone in Los Angeles who wants to watch the first match may set an alarm for before 6 a.m. and give up a good night sleep. The semifinals and the final land on the weekend, which is easier on everybody’s alarm clock. A dad in Chicago can have an early match on while the kids eat breakfast, and results and highlights are online for fans who sleep through it.
Prize money and points
The money grows with every round. At last year’s event, a round-robin singles win was worth $396,500, a semifinal win $1,183,400, and a final win $2,367,000. An undefeated singles champion took home $5,071,000 and 1,500 ranking points. Doubles prize money is smaller, with an undefeated champion team earning $959,300.
The undefeated bonus is what pushes the top prize so high. The champion’s check is the headline, but even a player who goes winless collects a participation fee, which was $331,000 at last year’s event. An alternate who never steps on court still earned $155,000. Those figures come from last year, and the 2026 totals may be different.