🔗 Share this article

Preamble

The typical complications of round-robin tennis often result in during this phase of the ATP World Tour Finals we’re often left confused, hastily looking for a computing device and striving to determine the complex qualification scenarios. Yet tonight’s match between Alexander Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime, fortunately, is easy. It’s a straight shootout: the winner earns a semi-final contest against Carlos Alcaraz at this championship finale; the unsuccessful competitor heads out.

Zverev is the predicted winner for this: the world No 3 is the more experienced competitor, has claimed the title at this event on two prior occasions and holds the advantage in their personal record six matches to three, winning both their previous matches on an enclosed hard court.

However … this particular court on which the Canadian has won the majority of his titles, he is full of confidence after his impressive recovery against Ben Shelton on recently and he eliminated Zverev in the US Championships third round in August. Furthermore, the playing speed is higher in the host city than at the US Open venue, which provides an additional advantage in the Canadian's favor.

If the German player is reserved, similar to his performance against the Italian, and Auger-Aliassime takes it to the European player with his effective service game and bold strategy, it might very well be the North American athlete – the earlier standout who was once in line ahead of the Spanish and Italian stars to replace the tennis icons – who secures the questionable privilege of playing against the global leader the next day.

Play begins: at about 8.30pm local time, 7:30 PM in the UK.