The fifth edition of the INTESA San Paolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan gets underway at the Allianz Cloud in Milan on Tuesday.
Lorenzo Musetti is the highest ranked player in the field. The world number 23 will take on Taipei’s Chun Hsin Tseng in his opening Red Group match in front of his home fans. The Italian player will make his second appearance at teh Next Gen ATP Finals. In last year’s edition of the Milan tournament Musetti won one of his three matches in the round robin group.
Musetti won his first ATP title last July in Hamburg on clay beating Carlos Alcaraz for the biggest win of his career. The match between Musetti and Alcaraz was the youngest ATP Tour final since Bastad 2005 when Rafael Nadal beat Tomas Berdych. During the indoor season Musetti reached two consecutive semifinals in Sofia and Florence and beat Casper Ruud to advance to his first Masters 1000 quarter final in Paris Bercy before losing to Novak Djokovic.
Chun-Hsin Tseng was outside the top 200 last November. The Chinese Taipei player reached his career-high number 83 last August. Tseng made his Australian Open debut at the 2022 Australian Open as wild-card and qualified at Roland Garros. He achieved his first ATP Tour win at Los Cabos in 2022 and won three Challenger titles in Bengaluru and Murcia.
Jack Draper will face Dominic Stricker in the final match of day one. Draper advanced to his first ATP Tour semifinal at Eastbourne as wild-card and earned the biggest win of his career over Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to his first Masters 1000 quarter final in Montreal as qualifier. The 20-year-old British player beat Auger Aliassime to advance to the third round at the US Open. He beat both Jannik Sinner and Alexander Bublik in two tie-breaks to achieve his first ATP Tour wins of his career, reaching 2021 Queen’s quarter finals as 309th-ranked wild card. Draper, who won four Challenger titles this year, will be the first British player to play at the Next Gen Finals
Stricker beat former world number 3 Marin Cilic on his ATP Tour debut en route to his first ATP Tour quarter final as a wild card. The world number 111 beat Maxime Cressy in the first round in Basel as 20-year-old wild card to become the youngest Swiss player to win a match in Basel since Roger Federer. He won his first Challenger in Lugano in 2021.
Brandon Nakashima will take on Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi at the Next Gen ATP Finals for the second consecutive year. He reached the semifinal in 2021 Next Gen Finals in Milan, losing to his compatriot Sebastian Korda in five sets. Nakashima achieved his career-high number 43 last October. He beat his countryman Marcos Giron in the final at the San Diego ATP 250 tournament. Nakashima beat Denis Shapovalov in the second round en route to the Wimbledon fourth round. He then defeated number 19 Grigor Dimitrov to reach the third round at the US Open.
Arnaldi reached the final at the Challenger tournament in St. Tropez and won his first tournament in Francavilla al Mare. He beat his compatriot Luca Nardi in pre-qualifying tournament to earn the wild card at the 2022 Masters 1000 in Rome.
Jiri Lehecka will face Francesco Passaro in the opening match of the Milan tournament on Tuesday afternoon. Lehecka advanced to the semifinals as a qualifier in Rotterdam as a qualifier. Before the Dutch tournament the Czech player had never previously won a tour-level match. Passaro started the 2022 season outside the top 600 in the ATP Ranking. This year he won his first Challenger title in Trieste last July and achieved his first ATP Tour win in Florence last October.
