A year ago, Stefanos Tsitsipas was the champion at the ATP Next Gen Finals. He carried that momentum into 2019 by upsetting Roger Federer at the Australian Open and advancing to the semifinals. By May, he had already won two 250-level titles this year. However, a heartbreaking loss to Stan Wawrinka at Roland Garros, in a match that lasted over five hours, sidetracked his season. He would not win another match at a Major the rest of this year. But Stefanos has emotionally recovered and is now 15-5 in his last 20 matches, and hasn’t lost to a player outside the top five in his last five events. As per Greg Sharko, he’s now the youngest player in the championship match of the ATP Finals since Jim Courier 28 years ago.
Prior to last season, Dominic Thiem had a career losing record in the fall months on hard courts. He would peak during the clay season, and struggle to win matches after the US Open. But since last year, he’s won four hard court titles, three of which were during September or October. And earlier this year, with new coach Nicolas Massu joining his team, he prevailed at the Masters 1,000 hard court event in Indian Wells. This is his fourth appearance at the ATP Finals, though he’d never advanced out of round robin play before this year. But he defeated both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic earlier this week, and has already secured a career-high year-end ranking of No.4 in the world regardless of today’s result.
Dominic Thiem (5) vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas (6)
This is a rare occasion where no member of “The Big Three” are present in a championship final at a Major or the ATP Finals. As Tennis Channel highlighted, in the 50 such tournaments over the past decade, this is only the fourth final that does not include Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic.
This will be the seventh meeting between Thiem and Tsitsipas, all of which have taken place over the last two seasons. Dominic owns a 4-2 record, and is 3-1 on hard courts. Stefanos’ only hard court victory came at the 2018 Rogers Cup, while Thiem claimed their last matchup in the final of Beijing last month. These two have clearly been the best players over the last week, as they both topped their round robin groups. They’ve both played aggressive tennis, saved some crucial break points, and overcome physical ailments. Tsitsipas had an injection in his foot earlier this week, while Thiem has been battling cold symptoms over the last few days.
If he’s feeling close to 100%, Dominic should be the fresher of the two players. He had a day off before the semifinals while Stefanos did not, and Tsitsipas had a near three-hour battle with Nadal on Friday. But it feels as if Thiem may have peaked earlier this week. And it’s worth noting he was gifted a few costly errors at critical times by Sascha Zverev yesterday. Meanwhile Tsitsipas showed just how much confidence he’s currently playing with in saving 11 of 12 break points yesterday against Federer.
In what should be a tight battle, I favor Tsitsipas to rely on his grit and become the new champion.
| Year | Event | Surface | RND | Winner | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Beijing China |
Outdoor Hard | F | Dominic Thiem |
36 64 61
|
| 2018 | ATP Masters 1000 Canada Canada |
Outdoor Hard | R32 | Stefanos Tsitsipas |
63 766
|
| 2018 | Roland Garros France |
Outdoor Clay | R64 | Dominic Thiem |
62 26 64 64
|
| 2018 | Barcelona Spain |
Outdoor Clay | QF | Stefanos Tsitsipas |
63 62
|
| 2018 | ATP Masters 1000 Indian Wells CA, U.S.A. |
Outdoor Hard | R64 | Dominic Thiem |
62 36 63
|
| 2018 | Doha Qatar |
Outdoor Hard | QF | Dominic Thiem |
75 64
|
Other Notable Matches on Day 8:
In the men’s doubles championship match, it’s Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus (5), who saved match points in yesterday’s semifinal against the top seeds, vs. Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut (7), who were finalists here a year ago and have not dropped a set on their current eight-match win streak.
