Big names missing in Paris: Djokovic headlines five Top-20 withdrawals ahead of season’s final Masters 1000

The Paris Masters will be the final Masters 1000 of the season, following its venue change from the Accor Arena in Bercy to the 'La Défense Arena' in Nanterre, a suburb of the French capital. The tournament will be held from October 27th to November 2nd, serving as the final major event of the year before the ATP Finals.

The tournament will regrettably miss several major players, led by the 7-time champion Novak Djokovic, who chose to take a break this week and skip the tournament. Nole is one of the biggest absentees, but not the only one, with 5 top-20 players ruled out for the week in Paris.

As the last Masters 1000 of the season, there is a lot at stake for many players in the draw, who know that an extra victory in this tournament can mean a significant change in the year-end ranking. With bonus pools for players finishing the year in the top-10 and top-30, most players in the draw are playing for something this week.

A separate issue is the battle for the final spots in the ATP Finals. Four of the eight players have secured their places (Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic and Zverev), while the race tightens, with Felix Auger-Aliassime and Casper Ruud close to the top-8 and having the chance to make a decisive move in Paris to claim one of the eight spots in Turin.

For a while now, Masters 1000 tournaments have ceased to be a career goal for Novak Djokovic. With the absolute record of 40 titles in the category and 7 of them in Paris, the Serbian opted to skip the tournament and rest ahead of his participation in the Athens Open – a tournament owned by his family and which will be held for the first time in his new city of residence. The Serbian still has doubts about whether he will participate in the ATP Finals at the end of the year, and since he doesn't give much importance to the ranking at this stage of his career, it is not surprising that the 38-year-old star has opted to skip Paris, especially after citing physical problems at the Six Kings Slam last week, when he withdrew in the third-place match against Taylor Fritz.

The British No. 1 Jack Draper said goodbye to his 2025 season after suffering a left arm injury. Since his appearance at Wimbledon, he has barely participated in one tournament in the last three months, retiring in the second round of the US Open. The 2025 Indian Wells champion could not maintain the pace he had in the first months of the year throughout the entire season and ended up out of competition, awaiting his return in 2026. Everything indicates he could quickly fall out of the top-10 – after having been ranked as world No. 4 halfway through the year, but the lack of tournaments has inevitably caused him to fall in the ranking after months with almost non official tournaments.

Holger Rune is living a nightmare after suffering a dramatic Achilles tendon injury in the middle of his participation in the Stockholm Open last week. The Dane withdrew in the middle of his semi-final match against Ugo Humbert after suffering an ankle injury, which forced him to undergo surgery a few days ago. A long time is expected for Rune off the courts – possibly between 6 to 9 months, at least – so it will be a long wait to see the 2022 Paris Masters champion back on the court, who precisely seemed one of the contenders to finish the season within the top-10 – and even compete for one of the spots at the ATP Finals.

The most recent injured player is Jakub Mensik, who was scheduled to take the court this Thursday at the Swiss Indoors for the round of 16 against Joao Fonseca, but withdrew before the match due to a foot injury. It was expected to be a preventive measure before Paris, but it turned out to be more serious than expected, and the Czech will miss the last Masters 1000 of the year – where he was even drawn against Francisco Cerúndolo, so a qualifier will take his place. The 2025 Miami Open champion remains confirmed for Athens next week, and it remains to be seen if he will be in condition to play the tournament owned by the Djokovic family.

The American managed to place himself within the top-10 during the first half of the year, but between injuries and irregular results, he lost prominence in recent months and was unable to play too many tournaments in the final part of the year. Since the end of the grass swing at Wimbledon, the American only played two tournaments in the last three months, being eliminated in the third round of the Cincinnati Open and US Open. His return was expected in the Asian swing, something that finally did not happen, and we will not see Paul in Paris either, after he announced the end of his season.

Other names of interest who will be out of the tournament include Stefanos Tsitsipas (No. 25), Frances Tiafoe (No. 29) and local star Arthur Fils (No. 30) – all of them due to injuries.