ATP Finals, Group Stage, Wednesday, 16.11.2022
Is the second day of play already the decisive one? At the ATP Finals in Turin, two players who have successfully started the last competition of the year will meet on Wednesday afternoon.
Accordingly, both opponents know: Win once more – and I have almost secured my ticket to the semi-finals! One of them would reach it for the first time ever, the other is an old hand at the World Tennis Championships.
I expect a hot dance to await us, even if Betway shows a clear favourite. In my Rublev Djokovic tip I now reveal why nobody, not even the Serb, should underestimate his opponent!
Seven years, that’s how long Novak Djokovic has been waiting for a title at the Finals. He may be a record champion, but the five trophies he has collected won’t automatically help him triumph this time too.
It was a difficult year for the Djoker, because he was not always allowed to participate in the tournaments or Grand Slams due to Corona. In Wimbledon he was allowed to, and in the end he stood at the top of the table.
After his success in Tel Aviv and Nur-Sultan, everyone expected him to win the Masters in Paris. Djokovic played big, beating Maxime Cressy, Karen Khachanov, Lorenzo Musetti and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
After winning the first set 6-3 against Holger Rune, Djokovic was almost certain to win the title again, but he was suddenly caught off guard by the youngster and actually gave the match away.
Just a little weakness before the finals? There he started against Stefanos Tsitsipas and had obvious trouble to get the Greek out of the way for a fourth time in 2022.
Both served strongly, Djokovic took one of his two break chances and fended off Tsitsipas’ only one. In the end, the scoreboard showed a close 6-4, 7-6, which must have cost the Serb a lot of energy.
87% of points won on the second serve, this statistic clearly stood out from that of his opponent. Now Djokovic is up against Andrey Rublev, and the two previous direct duels between them have been quite interesting.
A few months ago, the Russian surprised Djokovic in his home country of Belgrade with a 6-2, 6-7, 6-0 win. The Djoker has probably not yet forgotten the dismantling he suffered in the last set.
The two have already met once at the 2021 finals, where Djokovic was successful with a clear 6-3, 6-2. The bookmakers can now imagine this again very well, have average odds of 3.30 to 1.30 in the offer.
Rublev, however, has no need to hide from Djokovic. After never getting past the preliminary round of the finals in the last two years, he wants to do better in 2022. The start was already pleasing.
Against Daniil Medvedev, he tangled in a damn close, intense match, which he won by a razor-thin margin in the end 6-7 (7), 6-3, 7-6 (7). He only allowed his compatriot two break chances, fending off one of them.
After failing twice in a row in the last 16, Rublev now wants to end his 2022 as successfully as possible. He also prevailed against Medvedev because his 83% won points on the first serve were really strong.
Both players had to push their limits in the first encounter to take the victories. Novak Djokovic and Andrey Rublev served excellently and their opponents, who were by no means weak, could do whatever they wanted.
Djokovic is definitely beatable in 2022 if he doesn’t have an ideal day. Rublev showed against Medvedev that he is also capable of doing that.
In conclusion, I don’t want to commit to who will leave the court as the winner on Wednesday for exactly this reason. Since these two have already been involved in three tiebreaks, my money is on a close match and I say:
We see more than 20.5 games!
