Nov 20, 2021
TENNIS: The Nitto ATP Finals Semifinals Matchups
This is my first time watching the showcase, and it’s brilliant.
The Nitto ATP Finals are taking place in Turin, Italy. I’m actually watching the first semifinal of the day right now: Daniil Medvedev (2) vs. Casper Ruud (8). I won’t say anything about the score, in case you were hoping to watch it later or something, but it’s been quality thus far.
I want to talk a bit about why I really like this tournament, although I knew nothing about it a month ago. I think it’s an event I want to watch every year along with the four grand slams, because it’s really exciting.
The setup is a round-robin group stage which leads into a semifinal matchup (where we’re at now) and then a final. The kicker is that it features only the top-8 ranked tennis players on the ATP tour from the past year, with alternates there should someone get injured (as two players did this year).
Although it’s cool in the grand slam format how a cinderella player could come up out of nowhere and make a deep run (like Alcaraz at the US Open), this tournament is purely a showcase of those who’ve deserved it over the past year of tennis. Sure winning a major would be nice, but I think this tournament exemplifies a better end goal, one of consistently showing up at the end-of-year tournament as one of the world’s best players.
As for this year, we are once again witnessing a ridiculously good Novak Djokovic. But do we really want to talk about him? Let’s instead talk about the fact that he is now by far the oldest player in this elite group. At the age of 34, he is followed up by Medvedev (26), Zverev (24), Tsitsipas (23), and even the home-grown Italian, Jannik Sinner (20) made an appearance. The point is that this is young blood, and these guys are really good.
Leading the charge is the wily Russian Daniil Medvedev, who beat Novak in this year’s US Open. In this tournament, Medvedev has a good shot at beating him again, which might further usher in the age of a post ‘Big 3’ era (that of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic). I don’t mean to say by any means that Novak will be out of the picture anytime soon, but that there’s a lot of talent that might finally be able to shine perhaps just a bit brighter, on at least some occasions, than the towering figures in the sport for the last decade.
Another example is the other player I’m watching right now. Casper Ruud, from Oslo, Norway, is 22 years old and ridiculously good. He’s been ever rising in the rankings andpurchased his ticket as #8 in this tournament. He’s won 5 singles titles this year, showed his nerves of steel against Rublev in the last match of the group stage, and is more than capable of competing at the the highest level.
Anyways, I’ll try to wrap this up. This match has been good, but I expect the Djokovic v. Zverev match, coming on Tennis TV ($15 a month) at 3 pm today, to be even better. Per usual, I’ll personally be rooting for the player on the other side of the net of Djokovic, but it should be a great match.
This was my little exposé about finding an awesome tennis tournament, one I’ll definitely be watching again, and which I think you should watch too.
Video highlights from Medvedev v. Sinner below:
