For Novak Djokovic, rebounding from a round-robin defeat to win the ...

He’s actually bounced back from a loss in the group stages to win the ATP Finals TWICE before, in 2008 and 2015.

After falling to Jannik Sinner in a three-hour-plus epic on Tuesday, Novak Djokovic’s chances of qualifying for the semifinals of this year’s ATP Finals were up in the air—it would all come down to the last wave of round-robin matches from the Green Group on Thursday to see which two of Sinner, Djokovic and Holger Rune would make the cut.

Well, with Sinner and Djokovic both winning their matches on Thursday—and improving to 3-0 and 2-1, respectively—they finished first and second in the group and thus advanced to the semifinals.

And now a new phase of the tournament will begin with the single-elimination semifinals and final, and if history is anything to go by, it’s clear that a round-robin loss has no negative correlation with who goes on to win the title—in fact, a round-robin loss may even help.

In 26 of the 47 previous editions of the ATP Finals that held a round-robin format that fed into single-elimination semifinals and final, the player who won the title had actually lost a round-robin match.

That’s more than half of the time—55.3%, to be exact.

And even more relevant, Djokovic has done it twice himself—in 2008, when he lost a round-robin match to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 1-6, 7-5, 6-1, but went on to win the title, and in 2015, when he fell to Roger Federer in the group stages, 7-5, 6-2, but ended up lifting the trophy.

Djokovic is one of five players who’ve won the ATP Finals multiple times after having lost a round-robin match:

~ 5 times: Pete Sampras [1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999]
~ 3 times: Boris Becker [1988, 1992, 1995]
~ 2 times: Alexander Zverev [2018, 2021]
~ 2 times: Novak Djokovic [2008, 2015]
~ 2 times: Ilie Nastase [1973, 1975]