The second day at the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals takes place in Turin on Monday and it is the first day of action within the Red Groups of each of the tournaments as the final event of the season begins to warm up.
We saw some very impressive tennis on Sunday and with the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev among the players on show on Monday it would be a surprise if the standards drops at all.
Afternoon Session
Wesley Koolhof & Neal Skupski vs Rinky Hijikata & Jason Kubler
The opening match of the second day of the tournament sees two Grand Slam champions battling it out as the Wimbledon winners Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski go up against the Australian Open champions Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler.
Koolhof and Skupski have been one of the best teams in the world for a couple of seasons but it is known that they are playing together for the last time this week and that can always change a dynamic between a pair. I would be interested to see the cohesion between the two in this match. They take on the Australian pair who are here courtesy of winning a Grand Slam but since they landed the crown in their homeland they have played just nine matches together and have only won three of those so it is hard to get much enthusiasm about backing them. I can’t say I’m in a rush to back the number two seeds until I’ve seen them in action given their impending split so this is a pretty easy game to swerve.
Carlos Alcaraz vs Alexander Zverev
The first singles match on Monday has the potential to be an absolute cracker as the world number one for much of the year in Carlos Alcaraz, who is surprisingly making his debut in the tournament in this encounter, takes on the player who has won this event twice in the form of Alexander Zverev.
Alcaraz has been very good over the year as a whole but he comes into this event having lost three of his last five matches and you just wonder if he is beginning to feel the effects of a long year. If he is then Zverev could be the man to take advantage given that he has a fine record in this competition but he has played Alcaraz twice this year and lost both times without winning a set in either match. What is more worrying is that even though the German is 3-3 overall against the Spaniard, Alcaraz only dropped 12 games in those five sets and you would have to say dismantled the Zverev game. This suddenly feels like one to avoid on the assumption that Alcaraz is a good thing if he is fit.
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Night Session
Rohan Bopanna & Matthew Ebden vs Rajeev Ram & Joe Salisbury
The last of the doubles entrants to take to the court do so to open up the night session as the only team in the Red Group who didn’t win a Grand Slam this year in Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden take on the US Open champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury.
These two pairs met in the final of the US Open where obviously the American-British pair came out on top in a deciding set. Since then they have won the title in Vienna so they head to Turin as one of the form pairs of the competition. Bopanna and Ebden won a few matches in Paris just over a week ago though so there is plenty to suggest we should be in for a doubles match of the very highest quality here. I’m a little surprised that Ram and Salisbury are the outsiders for this match given that they are the defending champions and know how to get the job done in this event. I don’t think we can suggest they have been as good as they were last year overall but they have still won three titles on the year, including two in the last three months. To be fair to Bopanna and Ebden, they have reached six finals this year but they have lost four of them which makes me wonder if they don’t quite have it at the very big matches. We know Ram and Salisbury do and with motivation to begin their title defence positively I think the even money on the reigning champions is too big to ignore.
Daniil Medvedev vs Andrey Rublev
The last of the singles matches on Monday sees the two Russian challengers battling it out for the early advantage in the Red Group when the US Open finalist Daniil Medvedev meets his compatriot Andrey Rublev, who he beat in the quarter final out in New York.
While Rublev has probably closed the gap on Medvedev over the last couple of years, I do still think that Medvedev has this match on his racquet when they meet, especially on a hard court. Rublev gets himself into their battles more than he has done in the past but Medvedev still gets into the Rublev backhand easily enough to come out on top more often than not. Medvedev leads the head to head 7-2 here and his seven wins have all been in straight sets, whereas the two Rublev wins were in deciding sets. One of those was in this very building last year when Rublev won in a final set tiebreak but Medvedev wasn’t playing like he has in the latter part of this year. I think conditions will ensure the sets that are played will be tight but I expect Medvedev to win, however having backed him outright I don’t really need to go in on him again.
Tips
Back R.Ram & J.Salisbury to beat R.Bopanna & M.Ebden for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Boylesports
Back them here:
