Djokovic was confident about the RMC broadcaster ahead of the ATP Finals: “I think I have a good chance. The level of my tennis game is high,” said the Serbian. Knowing full well that the match in Turin will be great: “Every game there is like a final. There are no easy games. You have to be fit and fresh.
The field in Turin is led by 36-year-old Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who has qualified for the event, also known as the Masters, for the 17th time. However, the 36-year-old never won it, in 2010 and 2013 he was in the final. However, signs of victory are also rather bad for the 22-time winner this year.
The superstar, who recently became a father for the first time, was not too optimistic after his debut match against American Tommy Paul in Paris. “It’s hard to imagine that now I’m going to the ATP Finals and my form there is good enough to win a tournament that I’ve never won before,” said Nadal. He misses matches and training.
Djokovic and Nadal not in the same group
In any case, the favorites lie further down the seeding table: above all Wimbledon winner Djokovic and last year’s finalist and Vienna winner Daniil Medvedev. The “Djoker” from Serbia is also at the last ATP tournament for the 15th time and has already won the event five times (2008, 2012-2015). With another triumph he would equal the record of the Swiss Federer, who has won six Masters.
Russian Medvedev also knows the feeling of the Masters triumph, he defeated Dominic Thiem in the final in 2020, who is not in the competition for the second time in a row. Thiem was a regular from 2016 to 2020, then again in London, and reached the finals in 2019 and 2020, which Lower Austria narrowly lost.
However, Djokovic and Medvedev faced a difficult preliminary round group, so they have already met in the group stage. Also, the 2019 winner, Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece, and Russian Andrei Rublev are still in the red group. In the green group, Nadal meets last year’s Norwegian semifinalist Casper Ruud, Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, who played very well last fall, and American Taylor Fritz. The latter benefited from the cancellation of Alcaraz and, like Auger-Aliassime, is celebrating his Masters debut. Only the first and second of each group advance to the semi-finals.
The winner registers cash prizes
With Holger Rune, one of the hottest titles on the tennis circuit is, so to speak, “racket in the foot”: the Dane went to Turin as the first substitute. Last week in Paris-Bercy he managed to beat five top ten players in the same ATP event on his way to the title. No one outside of the Masters had ever done this before him. The 19-year-old broke into the top ten for the first time.
With a record prize pool of $14.75 million, or $4.74 million for an undefeated champion even in the preliminary round, it would be the highest-paid tennis triumph of all time. With Alcaraz cancelled, Nadal and Tsitsipas still have the chance to replace the young Spanish star at the top of the world rankings if he remains undefeated in Turin.
ATP-Finals in Turin
(Italy, $14,750,000, hard/indoor)
