Only four top 50 players will not play 2024 Australian Open warm-up tournaments

Only four players currently won't play any sort of ATP tour tennis before the 2024 Australian Open barring any sort of late wildcards into tournaments in the opening few weeks of next year.

Carlos Alcaraz is the leading light in this. The Spaniard had long been mooted as not playing any sort of warm-ups even mid season for the 2024 Australian Open seemingly due to the fact that he will play the South American swing of Rio and Buenos Aires post Australia. Also his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero as was confirmed yesterday cannot travel with him likely until Indian Wells and Miami.

This doesn't mean that the Spaniard will not play at all. But he is only currently slated for exhibition action in the lead-up in particular he will play on December 22 against Jannik Sinner (also on this list) and also Novak Djokovic in Riyadh as he heads to Australia from there.

Djokovic usually is a player who is cited on a list such as this with his decision to not play warm-up tournaments a heavy feature of the recent career of the 24-time Grand Slam champion who usually just turns up at the Grand Slam with a training block behind him and no warm-ups. But playing United Cup this year means that fades out.

Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev are the other two leading lights who won't take in any action in the opening of the year. But like Alcaraz, the trio all continued to play on until the ATP Finals with tournaments beforehand. Only Sinner really benefited from that, but also stopped his season mere weeks ago at the Davis Cup. So the likelihood is like Medvedev will take more time away in the lead up to Australia.

Stan Wawrinka who was the oldest player inside the top 50 this season is the other player. He is currently back training, but also seemingly won't take any tennis in before the 2024 Australian Open likely in a shrewd move given he is in the twilight of his career instead of stacking tournaments together. But it is interesting that even through injuries, only four players won't play at all seemingly before Melbourne.