Three players are making their debuts here at the ATP World Tour Finals this week. Each of them had their own path to the Finals and, obviously, each will react differently to this new situation.

The World Tour Finals is a different type of tournament than anything any of these players has competed in before. First of all, you can get away with a loss. A loss does not end your hopes of lifting the trophy at the end. In fact, an undefeated champion at the Finals is rarer than a champion who lost one round-robin match.

Also, unlike every other tournament on tour, every single opponent will be a top-10 player. There are no easy draws. There are no (major) upsets. Everyone you play will, at worst, be the No. 8 (No. 9 this year) player in the world. That is true in both the group and knockout stages.

Now, these are all top tennis players and there shouldn't be too much of a shock going into this new system. It's not like everyone struggles their first time coming into the Finals. In fact, just last year, Stanislas Wawrinka made the semifinals in his maiden World Tour Finals appearance, including victories over David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych.

Marin Cilic became the first of our new qualifiers this year after he guaranteed himself a top-20 finish with his US Open title. He actually finished No. 9 in the world and would have qualified through the Grand Slam champion rule, but that point became moot when Rafael Nadal withdrew anyway. His first foray into the Finals was not a pretty one, but it wasn't due to his poor play. When Novak Djokovic is hitting the ball cleanly on a quick indoor court, there really isn't much anyone can do against him.

The same is true of Roger Federer. Federer has been playing inspired tennis for the past few months and is really trying to work his way back to world No. 1. And on a fast indoor court, there really is almost no one who can beat him. Federer has taken on and defeated both of the other new competitors, Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori.

Now, neither Raonic nor Nishikori was beaten nearly as badly as Cilic. Also, Nishikori even won his opening match against Andy Murray and was relatively impressive in doing so. Raonic did not play poorly in either of his matches. He just faced opponents who can neutralize his serve and whom he really can't compete with from the baseline.

All in all, the showings of all of the newcomers recently at the Finals has been quite impressive. No one seems overwhelmed or overawed by the occasion. Part of this could be that we don't really have youngsters shooting up the rankings anymore. Each of these players has spent several years dancing around the top 20 and even top 10 before qualifying for this event. It makes the jump to this level of play much less jarring than, say, Roger Federer's–who first qualified at the age of 21 in his third real year on tour. Then again, Federer won all three of his round-robin matches before being beaten by world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt that year, so what do I know?