ATP Next Gen Finals 2023: Preview and all you need to know

The ATP Next Gen Finals is designed to feature eight of the best under-21 players on the ATP tour. Players can opt out for medical reasons or if they are participating in the ATP Finals a couple of weekends before. This is the case in 2023 as Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune were in the ATP Finals and Ben Shelton and Lorenzo Musetti opted out for medical or personal reasons.

Because those four are not playing in the ATP Next Gen Finals, that means France’s Arthur Fils will be the top seed at the tournament. Fils is currently No. 36 on the ATP tour. The second seed will be fellow Frenchman Luca Van Assche who is ranked 66.

Perhaps the most dangerous player at the tournament might be third-seed Dominic Stricker from Switzerland. Stricker made the fourth round of the US Open and defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the tournament. Stricker also has a win on Casper Ruud in 2023. Stricker is currently ranked 92.

Everything you need to know about the ATP Next Gen Finals

The rest of the players are fourth-seed Alex Michelsen of the United States (ranked 94), fifth-seed Favio Cobolli of Italy (ranked 100), sixth-seed Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia (ranked 111), seventh-seed Luca Nardi of Italy (ranked 118), and wild card Abdullah Shelbayh of Jordan (ranked 187). Shelbayh became the first Jordanian to win a Challenger Series tournament and an ATP-level match. He may also be the crowd favorite in Saudi Arabia.

The eight players will participate in a round-robin stage and they are split into two groups. The Green Group will feature Fils, Stricker, Cobolli, and Nardi. The Red Group will be Van Assche, Michelsen, Medjedovic, and Shelbayh. The top two from each group – each player will play the others in the group once during the round-robin stage – will move on to the semifinals.

The round-robin stage will be held from Tuesday, November 28 through Thursday, November 30. The semifinals are held on Friday, December 1, with the final being held at 8 pm local time on Saturday, December 2. The scoring for the event is unique with each set going to a best of 4 games with tie-breaks being played at 3-all. There will also be no ad points so a player does not have to win a game by two points.

There are no ATP points awards for wins, but the head-to-head matchups will be taken into account in a player’s ATP statistics.

As far as the winnings at the ATP Next Gen Finals, an undefeated winner will earn $514,000, a win in the final for a non-undefeated player earns $153,000, a semifinal win earns $113,500, each round-robin win is $32,500, and just by showing up a player will earn $150,000. That is good money if you are under 21 years old. Or heck, even older than 21.

If you want to watch the ATP Next Gen Finals, you can on the Tennis Channel in the United States, Tennis TV in most other places, and Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Games should be held early enough in Europe and the US to tune in for most of the action. And my guess to win the tournament is Stricker over Medjedovic.