The Spanish Carlos Alcaraz was included this Thursday in the ‘John Newcombe Group’ of the ATP Finals, along with the German Alexander Zverev, the Norwegian Casper Ruud and the Russian Andrey Rublev; while in the ‘Ilie Nastase Group’ the Italian Jannik Sinner, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, the American Taylor Fritz and the Australian Alex de Miñaur will face each other.
The first two in each group of this tournament to be held in Turin (northern Italy) from November 10 to 17 will advance to the semifinals, that is, those with the most victories – in the event of a tie, the head-to-head matches will be taken into account. face to face or the percentages of sets and games won.
The Spanish tennis player, number 3 in the world, will therefore face Zverev, who arrives as the second seed, with Ruud, seventh in the ranking, and with Rublev, ninth and who achieved classification due to the loss of the Serbian Novak Djokovic .
Alcaraz intends to finish the season well in his second participation in the ATP Finals, a former Masters tournament, after a year in which he won two Grand Slams, Roland Garros and Wimbledon; the Indian Wells Masters 1,000 and the Beijing ATP 500. The Murcian could not compete in the 2022 edition of the ATP Finals due to an abdominal injury.
The loss of Djokovic, current champion and player with the most titles in this last event of the year with seven in total (one more than the Swiss Roger Federer), leaves the Spaniard and Jannik Sinner as the main favorites for the title, who is already assured of being number 1 in the world of the season and that the last edition lost in the final against the Balkan.
Therefore, the confrontation between Alcaraz and Sinner, undisputed leaders of the new generation, would only take place in a hypothetical semifinals or final.
The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas will also not be there after five consecutive editions for finishing 12th in the ranking, so he will not be able to repeat his success of 2019, leaving the cast with only Medvedev and Zverev as winners. The Russian achieved it in 2020 and Sascha twice: 2018 and 2021.
Granollers and Zeballos, favorites in doubles
The pair formed by the Spanish Marcel Granollers and the Argentine Horacio Zeballos, number 1 couple in the ranking, will compete in the ATP Finals in the doubles category for the fifth consecutive year. They were finalists in 2020 and 2021 and semi-finalists in the last edition.
The number 1 were included in the ‘Mike Bryan Group’ with the couple formed by the Dutch Wesley Koolhof and the Croatian Nikola Metic; the Australians Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson; and the pairing of the Finnish Harri Eliovaara and the Englishman Henry Patten.
The other doubles group, the ‘Bob Bryan’, is made up of the Salvadoran Marcelo Arévalo and the Croatian Mate Pavc; the Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori; the Indian Rohan Bopanna and the Australian Matthew Ebden; and the Germans Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz.
EFE / FútbolUy
FútbolUy – Montevideo Portal
