The Next Gen ATP Finals starts on Wednesday in Jeddah. All eight of the world’s best under 20 players will be in action during the first day.
Arthur Fils vs Joao Fonseca
Top seed Arthur Fils will open his campaign in Blue Group against debutant Joao Fonseca in the evening session. Fils is aiming to avenge his defeat against his younger Brazilian opponent, who won their first head-to-head clash at the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro en route to reaching his first tour-level quarter final last February.
Fils won two ATP 500 titles in Hamburg and Tokyo to rise to a career-high of number 20. The Frenchman finished runner-up to Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic in last year’s championships match and is looking forward to improve on this result in this edition.
Jakub Mensik vs Learner Tien
Jakub Mensik beat four top 10 wins this year and won the 2024 ATP Newcomer of the Year Award. The Czech player beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Andy Murray, Andrey Rublev and Gael Monfils en route to the final in Doha before losing to Karen Khachanov in the championship match. Last October Mensik beat Andrey Rublev and Grigor Dimitrov before losing to Novak Djokovic in the quarter final at the Shanghai Masters 1000 tournament.
Tien is another Next Gen Finals debutant. The US player won ATP Challenger Tour titles in Bloomfield Hills, Lakewood Las Vegas and Fairfield and reache the quarter final in Winston Salem. The US player has a record of 31 wins to 9 losses this year.
Shang Juncheng vs Luca Van Assche
Luca Van Assche reached the semifinal at last year’s edition of the Next Gen Finals in Jeddah. The 20-year-old Frenchman is currently ranked number 128 after reaching the top 100 in April 2023. He advanced to the third round for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open in Melbourne last January. He will face Shang Juncheng, who became just the second Chinese player to win an ATP Tour title with his triumph in Chengdu against Olympic bronze medallist Lorenzo Musetti. Shang Juncheng is currently ranked world number 50 and is over 70 spots ahead of Van Assche in the ATP Ranking.
The 19-year-old Chinese player also advanced to the semifinals in Hong Kong and Atlanta and lost to Carlos Alcaraz at the Australian Open.
Alex Michelsen vs Nishesh Basaraveddy
Alex Michelsen reached two ATP Tour finals in Newport and Winston Salerm rising to number 42 in the ATP Ranking and advanced to the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at the Australian Open. Michelsen is aiming to win his first win at the Next Gen Finals in Jeddah after losing all of his three matches in the robin stage in 2023.
Basaraveddy has never played on the ATP Tour but won two Challengers in Tiburon and Puerto Vallarta.
For the first time in tournament history three US players are set to play together at the Next Gen Finals.
Michelsen, Basaraveddy and Tien grew up in California and played together in junior competitions.
