Next Gen ATP Finals tips: Arthur Fils can cap a glorious season

Golazzo! We tipped up Italy at a tidy 5/1 to win the Davis Cup Finals last week and Jannik Sinner and the boys duly obliged with a quite brilliant win in Malaga.

Sinner lead Italy to first Davis Cup triumph in 47 years as they beat Australia in the final, after overcoming Novak Djokovic and Serbia in semi-finals.

Sinner has a body shape that is so deceiving. Indeed, the last time I saw legs like that they had a message tied to them! Yet the power he can generate off both wings is frightening at times. Anyway, after a couple of naughty weeks we are back in profit.

This week it is all about the Next Gen ATP Finals. To the uninitiated, this is an annual men's professional exhibition ATP event for the best 21-and-under players of the season.

Previously held in Milan, the gig has moved to King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah from this season.

Sinner actually won the event in 2019, while Stefanos Tsitsipas and Carlos Alcaraz are among other notable former champions for an event that’s been going since 2017.

France’s Arthur Fils is the top seed at the tournament this year. He is unbeaten so far and has been profitable for followers of this column already this season. He is an excellent prospect and one to follow in 2024.

Fils blasted past fifth seed Flavio Cobolli 4-1 4-2 4-2 in 59 minutes on Wednesday and in doing so set down a marker for the rest of the field with a clean-hitting performance.

The 19-year-old is a 6/4 betting favourite now with Planet Sport Bet and that’s a fair price given how well he has started.

 

 

The second seed will be another Frenchman Luca Van Assche, a 19-year-old won turned pro in 2021.

Third-seed Dominic Stricker – who faces Fils on Thursday - has already made some headlines in 2023. Stricker upset Tsitsipas as he made round four at the US Open and also holds a ‘W’ over the accomplished Caser Ruud in Basel this season (Stricker hit 13 aces and 31 forehand winners in the match).

The Swiss 21-year-old is an exciting talent, but his title dreams this season took a hit when he lost to Cobolli in his first match.

However, he bounced back to see off seventh-seed Luca Nardi 4-1, 4-1, 4-2 and is back in the mix in Saudi. He is 6/1 at time of writing yet should he beat Fils those odds will come crashing down.

The rest of the field includes fourth-seed Alex Michelsen of the United States, sixth-seed Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia and wild card Abdullah Shelbayh of Jordan. Medjedovic has made a solid start and is 100/30 to win the title this weekend.

The aforementioned eight young guns are in the midst of a round-robin stage having been split into two groups.

The Green Group features Fils, Stricker, Cobolli, and Nardi, while Van Assche, Michelsen, Medjedovic, and Shelbayh are battling it out in the Red Group.

The top two from each group – each player will play the other in their group once during the round-robin stage – will move on to the semi-finals.

As always the scoring for the event is unique with a best-of-five-sets format in which each set goes to the player who is first to four games, with a tiebreak at 3-3.

We have seen some breakout stars win this over the years and flamboyant French teen Fils - who has had a breakout 2023 – can cap a glorious season by winning in Jeddah at 6/4.

Tip: Arthur Fils to win the Next Gen ATP Finals at 6/4 (Planet Sport Bet)