Heading into the year-end ATP Finals in Turin, organisers enlisted the Premier League to help promote their event.
At first, it may sound like a peculiar collaboration until you factor in the Premier League’s social media following of more than 45M on X and another 79M on Instagram. Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and Casper Ruud were among 10 players who took part in a video predicting the results from matchweek 11, which took place during the same weekend as the ATP Finals began.
So how good are tennis players at predicting scores? According to the Premier League’s scoring system, a maximum of 100 points can be won by the group should they get all their predictions right. The scoring is simple: 0 points for an incorrect guess, 5 points for the right result (but not the right score), and 10 points for a perfect prediction.
Daniil Medvedev: Crystal Palace 2 – Brighton 1
Former world No.1 and US Open champion Medvedev is a supporter of Bayern Munich, once saying, “I really fell in love with football and with Bayern when I was maybe 12 years old. That’s when it really started. But even before that, when I was 6 years old, I remember that I already liked Bayern.”
Fans of Crystal Palace and Brighton might have hoped Medvedev was right because then they would have seen some goals! Instead, it was a goalless draw with just five shots on target during the entire match, with three coming from Brighton.
Palace was on a three-match winning streak before facing Brighton.
POINTS: 0
Taylor Fritz: Man United 1 – Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) 1
America’s Fritz is a Manchester United supporter who once compared himself with Ronaldo by saying, ‘a lot of people call him cocky or whatever, but I think I’m very much the same way and I think that you need to be very confident and believe in yourself.’
Fritz was correct in predicting a tie, but there were a couple more goals than he expected, with each team firing two. Although three of these goals, of which two came from Spurs, occurred after the 84th minute!
POINTS: 5
Alexander Zverev: Man City to beat Liverpool
Bayern Munich supporter Alexander Zverev had a fair amount to say when speaking about Man City’s clash with Liverpool.
“Man City will win this time because Liverpool is going through a tough phase and Man City is playing amazing football at the moment. Haaland is scoring around two goals a game and, for me, they have the best manager.”
Man City thrashed Liverpool 3-0 and had twice as many shots on target (14 against seven). Haaland got the first goal after missing a penalty, followed by Nico Silva and Jeremy Doku.
POINTS: 5
Casper Ruud: Aston Villa to beat Bournemouth
Norway’s Ruud is a Liverpool fan who paid tribute to Arene Slot’s team winning the 2024/2025 premier league title whilst playing in the Madrid Open. After winning one match, he wrote on the camera lens “YNWA #20,” referring to Liverpool going level with Manchester United’s all-time record of 20 league crowns.
However, for some reason, he was tasked with predicting the outcome between Aston Villa and Bournemouth (I don’t understand the logic either). To Ruud’s credit, he correctly predicted a Villa win but didn’t mention a score. Villa stormed to a 4-0 win with goals from Buendía, Onana, Barkley and Malen.
POINTS: 5
Cameron Norrie: Newcastle to beat Brentford 3-0 (Woltemade hat-trick)
As a Newcastle fan for more than a decade, Cameron Norrie was always going to back the Magpies for glory and was even confident enough to predict that Nick Woltemade would score a hat-trick! Quite an ambitious prediction given that the German has scored only four goals so far in the entire Premier League this season.
Unfortunately for Norrie and Newcastle, they suffered a 3-1 loss to Brentford and went down to 10 men after 73 minutes. To make matters worse, they have dropped down to 14th in the table and have failed to win an away league game since April.
POINTS: 0
Felix Auger-Aliassime: Nottingham Forest 2 – Leeds 1
Felix Auger-Aliassime was introduced to tennis by his father Sam, who might have taken a different path in sport if it wasn’t for some words from his former football coach.
“In soccer, I couldn’t dribble or do much with my left foot. I always shot and got passes with my right. My coach said ‘Sam, forget about a career in soccer. You’re not good enough with your left foot.’ I was discouraged, but then I took up tennis full-time.”
During his younger years, Aliassime said football was his ‘second best sport’ and he played on the left wing. As his prediction, the Canadian corrected predicted a Forest win, but Sean Dyche’s men fired three goals past Leeds instead of two. Sangaré, Gibbs-White and Anderson were the scorers.
POINTS: 5
Alex de Minaur: Chelsea 2 – Wolverhampton (Wolves) 0
Considering Wolves came into the match with zero wins, two draws and six losses, with the dismissal of coach Vitor Pereira just over a week ago, Alex de Minaur probably didn’t have to think too much about who was going to win their clash with Chelsea. The Australian, who follows in his mother’s footsteps as a Real Madrid fan, predicted a 2-0 win for the Blues.
De Minaur was almost right with Chelsea scoring a hat-trick at Stamford Bridge and maintaining a ball possession of 64%, according to Flashscore.
POINTS: 5
Lorenzo Musetti: Arsenal 2 – Sunderland 1
Musetti is currently playing at the ATP Finals in Turin, which is also the home of his football team, Juventus. The Italian backed Arsenal to beat an in-form Sunderland 2-1 and he was extremely close to getting his prediction right. However, an equaliser by Sunderland’s Brian Brobbey in the 94th minute meant Musetti went from earning 10 points to zero.
POINTS: 0
Ben Shelton: Everton 2 – Fulham 1
Shelton, who is the boyfriend of Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, had his first experience of the German Bundesliga, as well as football in Europe, earlier this year when he watched Bayern Munich take on Borussia Dortmund.
“One of the guys with Bayern said that since 2005, there hasn’t been a single game where they didn’t sell out. And I think that just speaks to how big this sport is globally,” he said.
Shelton was correct in predicting a win for Everton, who has ended their run of playing three Premier League matches without grabbing a victory. However, he didn’t get the score right with The Toffees winning 2-1.
POINTS: 5
Matteo Berrettini: West Ham 1 – Burnley 1
Berrettini was born in Rome but is actually a fan of Fiorentina, which is based in Florence. The reason is that his grandfather, who came from Fiesole, passed on his love for Florentina to his son and grandson by taking them to games.
The Italian predicted a 1-1 draw between West Ham and Burnley, but what actually happened was a five-goal thriller with the Hammers coming out on top (3-2).
POINTS: 0
