Twentieth player in the world and already winner of two titles in 2024, Frenchman Arthur Fils will try to conquer a third at the NextGen ATP Finals, which begin this Wednesday in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and which he enters as a favorite.
“I'm using this week as a training week“, said the French number 2 in a video published on his Instagram account.
“I will of course do my best if I can win the tournament, but I am focusing more on training.” a few weeks before the Australian Open (January 12-26), he added in this video originally published by the organizers of the NextGen Finals.
Defeated in 2023 in the final of this tournament which brings together the eight best players under 21 from the past season, the winner of the ATP 500 in Hamburg (clay) and Tokyo (hard) will challenge the Czech in the blue group Jakub Mensik (48th), the American Learner Tien (122nd) and the Brazilian Joao Fonseca (145e).
The red group will pit the American against each other Alex Michelsen (41st), the Chinese Shang Juncheng (50th), the French Luca Van Assche (128th), beaten by Fils in the semi-finals of the 2023 edition, and the American Nishesh Basavareddy (138e).
The first two in each group will qualify for the semi-finals of this tournament won in recent years by big names on the circuit such as world number 1 Jannik Sinnerthe four-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz (3rd) or Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (11e).
The final of the seventh edition of the NextGen Finals, which is being played for the second consecutive year in Saudi Arabia, is scheduled for Sunday at 5:00 p.m.
Each match is played in the best of five sets, the first player to win four games winning the round (a tie-break decides between the two players in the event of a tie at 3 games all).
Other changes compared to traditional ATP tournaments: participants will only be allowed a maximum of eight seconds between their first and second serves, and only 15 to 25 seconds of respite between each point, depending on the length from the previous exchange.
