Italian 19-year-old Next Gen player Luca Nardi has boosted his chances of qualifiying for the Intesa San Paolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last week when he came through the qualifying round to advance to the second round at the Astana Open.
In the Kazakh ATP 250 tournament Nardi beat Hamad Medjedovic, David Goffin and Alexander Medjedovic before losing to 2018 Next Gen Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas in two tie-break sets.
Nardi is currently 11th in the Next Gen ATP Race to Milan, trailing Swiss player Dominic Stricker by just 5 points.
Another Italian Next Gen player Francesco Passaro clinched his first ATP Challenger tournament last July in Trieste and climbed to his career-high of world number 122. Passaro is currently ranked in the ATP Race to Milan.
“When I first started playing tennis aged six, my family was basically living at the club. My house was just two minutes from the club and for me it was easy to go there. Then when I started to go, I had a lot of friends and it was like my second family. I think I spent more time there than at my home. When I was young I also played football. Then when was 12 years old, I started to only play football for one year. I started practicing tennis and was just playing a few tournaments because it was too much. I was a goalkeeper in football and it was very nice. However, it made me realise I just wanted to play tennis”, said Francesco Passaro.
Timofey Skatov has climbed 10 places moving up to 13th in the ATP Race with 347 points to Milan after winning the Challenger title in Parma. Skatov trails Stricker by 47 points.
US 20-year-old Ben Shelton is now ranked 15th with after reaching the final at the ATP Challenger tournament in Tiburon. This year’s Hamburg champion Lorenzo Musetti and Munich winner Holger Rune have already qualified for the Next Gen ATP Finals. This year’s US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have withdrawn from this tournament. Alcaraz has already secured his spot for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.
