The fifth edition of the Intesa Sao Paolo Next Gen Finals gets underway on Tuesday. Top seed Holger Rune will be missing from the field, but Italian Lorenzo Musetti will catch much of the attention in Milan.
Musetti leads the Red Group, featuring Jack Draper, Chun-Hsin Tseng and Dominic Stricker.
Brandon Nakashima is the highest ranked player in the Green Group and faces Jiri Lehecka, Francesco Passaro and Matteo Arnaldi. Rune was set to lead this group, but withdrew following his extraordinary title run in Paris.
The young Dane will instead be first alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.
Musetti is the tournament’s favourite, but will face the second highest ranked player in the tournament in Jack Draper. The Brit won their only previous meeting at them Wimbledon juniors in 2018.
Draper has enjoyed a breakout season, with notable wins over Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas. He is ranked in the world’s top 50 and is set to improve on that ranking in 2023.
Stricker is at a career high ranking of 116, and is likely to make his main draw debut at a Grand Slam next season. Taipei’s Tseng may be the biggest threat to either Musetti or Draper in the group stages. The world number 90 is the second highest ranked man from Asia in the ATP rankings.
2022 has been an impressive season for America’s Nakashima. The 21-year-old reached the US Open third round, defeating Grigor Dimitrov en route, and the fourth round at Wimbledon, where he put out 2021’s semi-finalist Denis Shapovalov.
The American may be challenged by Czech Republic’s Jiri Lehecka, ranked 75 in the world. Lehecka has also beaten Dimitrov and Shapovalov this season in two of his most impressive wins. He also reached the semi-finals of the ATP 500 event in Rotterdam earlier this year.
21-year-old Italians Passaro and Arnaldi are both on the cusp of breaking the world’s top 100. There are currently six Italians ranked in the top 100 including Musetti and fellow young counterpart Jannik Sinner.
New Rules Set To Be Trialled in Milan
The ATP and Italian Tennis Generation announced some innovative rules that will be trialled at the Finals.
One of the rules to be trialled is a quicker shot clock than the usual 25 second rule on the ATP. The time in-between points will be shortened to 15 seconds if the server hits an ace, a double fault or if the returner misses the return through forced or unforced error.
In addition, breaks will be reduced in time. There will be no changeovers at the end of the opening game of a set. Players will also only have 90 seconds at the end of each set, reduced from 120.
Coaching will be permitted at the event on the same basis as applied in the coaching trial on Tour with one addition: A player will be allowed to talk to his coach if his opponent takes a medical time-out or toilet break.
The tournament consists of a round-robin format, just like the ATP and WTA finals. Matches are best of five sets, with a player needing four games to win a set. There will be tie-breaks at three games all to decide the winner of a set.
The top two players from each group progress to the semi-finals, with the final taking place on Saturday.