Last year in London, the abstruse showman Daniil Medvedev revelled in an ATP Finals which took place without crowds. As the coronavirus pandemic raged through the English capital, the show went on inside the empty confines of the O2 Arena, where the rangy Russian achieved the rare feat of beating the top three players in the world.
Victories over Novak Djokovic in the group stage, Rafa Nadal in the semi-final, then Dominic Thiem in his second successive final disappointment gave Medvedev what was at the time the biggest title of his career. Twelve months on and that accolade instead belongs to the 2021 US Open, where Medvedev defeated Djokovic in straight sets to clinch his maiden Grand Slam.
This year the traditional end-of-season spectacle shifted from the O2 Arena in London to the Pala Alpitour in Turin, which the ATP Finals plans to call home as part of a five-year agreement. In the enduring absence of Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, a couple of new faces in the form of Hubert Hurkacz and Casper Ruud rounded out the cast for the meeting of the top eight players in men’s tennis.
When Matteo Berrettini and Stefanos Tsitsipas withdrew from the tournament after their opening matches, citing a left oblique injury and an elbow injury respectively, the young prospect Jannik Sinner and the steadily improving Cam Norrie were late additions to the mix. The hotly-tipped Sinner subbed in for his Italian compatriot, while Norrie had climbed the rankings on the back of a late-season surge which saw him claim his first Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells.
In the Green Group, three straight-set victories for the world number one Novak Djokovic saw him progress to the knockout stages, while the tag-team of Tsitsipas and Norrie suffered three consecutive defeats. That left Casper Ruud versus Andrey Rublev as the decider, and after rallying from a set and a break down, it was the Norwegian who prevailed in the third-set tie-break with the final score reading 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5). Ending the match with an ace, Ruud put to bed a long losing streak against his opponent, which prior to their encounter at the ATP Finals had stretched across eight consecutive sets.
Meanwhile in the Red Group it was Medvedev who made the early running, as the world number two defeated Hurkacz and Alexander Zverev in three close-fought sets. A walkover victory for Zverev in his opening match as the home favourite Berrettini succumbed to injury left Sinner as Berrettini’s replacement with a small mountain to climb. And although the 20-year-old Italian handily defeated Hurkacz, it was Zverev who secured his passage to the knockout stages by beating the hapless Pole in two sets.
Medvedev versus Sinner then served as a dead rubber, but there was still plenty of pride at stake. And in one of the matches of the tournament, Sinner battled back from a first-set blowout to take the second set in the tie-break. The celebrations of the young Italian seemed to revive some of that old antagonistic spirit in Medvedev, who clawed and scrapped and stepped up into the court, saving two match points before scraping a 6-0, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (10-8) victory.
While Novak Djokovic has dominated at the majors, Alexander Zverev has proven more than his match over the shorter three-set format. In two of the biggest victories of his career, the German defeated Djokovic to win the ATP Finals in 2018, and dashed his opponent’s hopes over the summer on course to gold at the Tokyo Olympics. It was scarcely a surprise then when Zverev upset the world number one in the semi-finals in Turin, with the match running away from Djokovic after a slipshod start to the third set.
In the other semi-final, Medvedev swept past Casper Ruud with relative ease, making the final in Turin a matchup between the reigning US Open champion and the reigning Olympic champion. Hard court specialists with enough durability and stamina to excel towards the end of the long tennis season, Medvedev entered the final on the back of a five-match winning streak versus his opponent, building a 6-5 head-to-head record against Zverev owing largely to his dominance on the indoor hard surfaces.
But after losing to Medvedev in the group phase, Zverev was ready to turn the tables on his rival, and in a surprisingly straightforward match it was the big-hitting German who came out ahead. The serve proved decisive, as Zverev carried his form over from the semi-final, winning 20 of his 25 service points in the first set. Medvedev meanwhile lamented his lack of sharpness on serve, saying:
‘Even when it was going on the line, it didn’t really have that spark. It wasn’t enough for Sascha, who is a great player and broke me two times. Sometimes, in a way, it’s not bad, but when you’re playing in a big final on a fast surface against someone who is serving like Sascha, it’s enough to win the match. We can talk about many things, but the serve was definitely the key today, and he was better.’
Zverev broke Medvedev at 1-1 in the first set, and after breaking again in the opening game of the second he began to storm the net, ripping volleys past his opponent in a bravura display of confidence and shotmaking. Zverev is yet to defeat a top-ten player in a Grand Slam tournament, but here at the ATP Finals he won consecutive matches against the top two players in the world as he beat Medvedev 6-4, 6-4 to clinch his second title.
So there was plenty to celebrate as Zverev took another step forward in Turin, from the lively crowd which the champion called ‘absolutely insane’ to the performance of the Italian upstart Jannik Sinner, who became the youngest player to win his opening match at the ATP Finals since Lleyton Hewitt way back in 2000. After the eight competitors took a promotional stroll through the city, the Piazza San Carlo hosted a fan village with vermouth tasting events and sustainability activities during the course of the tournament.
But an air of uncertainty increasingly besets the men’s game, stifling the easy transition between generations. The nine-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic is unsure whether he will travel to Melbourne at the start of the year, as the tournament plans to enforce a coronavirus vaccine mandate. Roger Federer is unlikely to return to the tennis court until the middle of 2022, but Rafa Nadal at least intends to be back in time for the first Grand Slam of the season.
The injury which forced Stefanos Tsitsipas out of the ATP Finals in Turin may force the Greek star to undergo elbow surgery. Tsitsipas anyway has fallen out of the good graces of many fans, after the toilet break fiasco at the US Open cast him in the role of villain. And as Alexander Zverev’s game threatens to hit new heights, he remains subject to an ongoing investigation into the alleged abuse of his former girlfriend Olya Sharypova.
