After a 21-month wait, Gael Monfils is an ATP Tour finalist once again.

The Frenchman eased past Laslo Djere 7-5, 6-2 on Saturday to book a championship-match spot at the BNP Paribas Nordic Open. Monfils held his nerve after letting slip an early 4-0 lead in Stockholm, winning eight of the final 10 games from 5-5 in the first set to set a final clash on Sunday with qualifier Pavel Kotov.

Monfils converted five of seven break points he earned and sent down nine aces to overcome Djere in the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting. He is now the oldest finalist in Stockholm tournament history at 37-years-old, and will chase his 12th ATP Tour title on Sunday when he meets Kotov for the first time at tour-level.

“It’s great, I feel great. It’s obviously been a long time for me, because I haven’t played so much,” said Monfils on returning to an ATP Tour final at an event where he lifted the trophy in 2011. “A lot of good memories here, it’s obviously great to be back in a place where you won.”

Kotov earlier made it six matches down, one to go, in Stockholm by defeating Miomir Kecmanovic 6-3, 6-4. The No. 109-ranked Kotov powered 25 winners to his opponent’s 17 to back up his career-best quarter-final win against third seed Tallon Griekspoor in style.

“I’m extremely happy and super tired,” said Kotov, who came through two rounds of qualifying prior to taking his place in the main draw in Sweden. “It was my dream to play a final and now it is 2023 and it’s my first one. It’s a super end to the season for me.”

That 1st final feeling! 😁

Qualifier Pavel Kotov gets the job done 6-3, 6-4 facing Kecmanovic @sthlm_open | #bnpparibasnordicopen pic.twitter.com/ncQlusVHwT

— ATP Tour (@atptour) October 21, 2023

Kotov broke Kecmanovic’s serve decisively midway through each set to seal a 91-minute triumph in the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash. He has now dropped just one set across his six matches in the Swedish capital.

“I tried to stay very aggressive,” said Kotov of Saturday’s semi-final win. “I tried to make as few mistakes as I could, but still it was a very tough match. I’ve had a great week here, it’s amazing.”

Kotov, who also reached the semi-finals in Marrakech in April, is up 28 spots to No. 81 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings as a result of his run in Stockholm.

The Erste Bank Open draw has thrown up plenty of blockbuster first-round match ups as a host of the world’s top stars arrive in Vienna for the ATP 500.

Home favourite and 2019 champion Dominic Thiem will be out for revenge when he takes on fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. Tstisipas edged the Austrian in deciding-set tie-breaks both in Madrid and at Wimbledon earlier this year, but the former World No. 3 Thiem will hope to be inspired by his home fans inside the Wiener Stadthalle as he looks to rediscover his best form.

Daniil Medvedev is in the same half of the draw as Thiem and Tsitsipas, but the top seed and defending champion will not be looking past his first-round challenge in Vienna. He plays #NextGenATP Frenchman Arthur Fils, who is enjoying a breakout year on the ATP Tour and beat Tsitsipas in the Antwerp semi-finals on Saturday.

Grigor Dimitrov and Lorenzo Musetti will await Medvedev or Fils in the second round. The pair has not met since 2021, when Musetti prevailed in straight sets on the hard courts of Acapulco.

In the bottom half of the draw, Jannik Sinner against Ben Shelton represents another popcorn opener in Austria. The pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting took place in Shanghai under two weeks ago, when Shelton edged the Italian in a third-set tie-break. The 21-year-old Shelton plays his maiden ATP Tour final against Aslan Karatsev in Tokyo on Sunday, before flying to Vienna.

Seventh seed Frances Tiafoe is a potential quarter-final opponent for Shelton and Sinner. The American starts his campaign against Daniel Evans. Third seed Andrey Rublev or fifth seed Alexander Zverev are also seeded to meet in the quarter-finals. Rublev begins against Alexei Popyrin, while Zverev will hope to spoil the party for home fans when he steps out against wild card Sebastian Ofner.

Home Favourite Wawrinka To Dash Fritz’s Turin Hopes In Basel?
A two-time semi-finalist at the Swiss Indoors Basel, Stan Wawrinka will hope his home fans can fire him up for another deep run this week at the ATP 500.

The 16-time tour-level titlist Wawrinka opens against a qualifier in Basel, where he could meet third seed Taylor Fritz in the second round. A deep run in Switzerland would be a significant boost for Fritz’s Nitto ATP Finals qualification chances — the American is currently ninth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin.

Just above Fritz in eighth in the Live Race is Basel top seed Holger Rune. The Dane meets Miomir Kecmanovic first up as he looks to bounce back quickly from a first-round exit in Stockholm. Should he make it to the quarter-finals, Rune could face eighth seed Sebastian Korda or former World No. 1 Andy Murray. Wawrinka and defending champion Felix Auger-Aliassime are among Rune’s potential semi-final opponents.

Three other Nitto ATP Finals qualification hopefuls, Casper Ruud, Alex de Minaur and Hubert Hurkacz, are in the bottom half of the Basel draw. Ruud opens against Alexander Bublik, who will first play in the Antwerp final on Sunday, while De Minaur starts against former Top 10-star Diego Schwartzman. Fourth seed Hurkacz, an ATP Masters 1000 champion earlier this month in Shanghai, starts against Dusan Lajovic.

French teen Arthur Fils has become the youngest European Open finalist in history after a clutch 7-6(5), 7-6(4) win over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Antwerp semi-finals Saturday.

The 19-year-old, who made his main-draw tour-level debut less than a year ago at the Rolex Paris Masters, is now one win away from his second title of the season and from breaking into the Top 35 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time after beginning the year outside the Top 250.

Fils, who looks certain to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals in Jeddah next month, saved two break points at 5-all in the first set. In the second set he failed to serve out the match at 5-4 but steadied with a love hold and dominant tie-break to close out the match and seal the second Top-10 win of his career.

“I was very tight and my first serve just wouldn’t go [in]… so I said maybe it would be tough,” Fils said of trying to serve out the match. “He had some great points and I made some bad mistakes.
“But I was very happy with how I played in the tie-break and now I will try to bring my best in the final.”

Tsitsipas, who was chasing his second title of the season, remains in strong contention to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, as he continues to hold down sixth place in the Pepperstone ATP Race To Turin.

Fils next will play World No. 36 Alexander Bublik, who came into the event having lost in the opening round of all five tournaments he had contested since his run to the Wimbledon fourth round. 

Bublik put himself into position to return to the Top 30 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings after moving into the Antwerp final with a 6-4, 6-4 win over German qualifier Maximilian Marterer.

The 26-year-old Kazakhstani heads into Sunday’s title match with a 2-6 record in tour-level finals, with his two trophy lifts coming in Halle earlier this year (d. Rublev) and in Montpellier in 2022 (d. Zverev).

“I played Max in a very tough match at Wimbledon earlier this year. It was the same game plan to be solid, stay focussed and use my experience,” Bublik said. 

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.

Jamie Murray and Michael Venus did just that on Saturday at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships, where they edged Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow 7-6(5), 2-6, 14/12 in a tense semi-final clash.

American duo Lammons and Withow saved four match points from 5/9 in the Match Tie-break and denied their opponents a further three times on match point before the British-Kiwi team finally sealed a one-hour, 45-minute triumph in Tokyo. Murray and Venus will now face Rinky Hijikata and Max Purcell in the championship match on Sunday as they chase their fifth ATP Tour crown of the year.

Victory on Sunday would also be a further boost for Murray and Venus’ Nitto ATP Finals qualification prospects. They leapfrogged Lammons and Withrow into eighth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings after Saturday’s win, and would move within 47 points of seventh-placed Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury with the Tokyo crown.

Ben Shelton’s first full season on the ATP Tour hit new highs Saturday in Tokyo, where the #NextGenATP American defeated countryman Marcos Giron to reach the final at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships.

The 21-year-old Shelton prevailed 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4 in a two-hour, 50-minute semi-final clash inside Ariake Coliseum to reach his maiden tour-level championship match. He kept his cool after dropping the first set, converting four of eight break points he earned to set a final meeting on Sunday with Aslan Karatsev.

“It’s a huge achievement for me and my team, especially the way the match panned out today,” said Shelton. “Definitely one of the toughest matches I’ve played in my life. Marcos was waxing me from the baseline in almost every rally and I had to completely change my game to even have a chance against him.

“To be able to get through that match, to not only figure some things out but get a win and be going into my first ATP final, the win couldn’t be sweeter.”

ATP Tour final: Unlocked 🔓@BenShelton defeats Marcos Giron to reach his first tour-level final of his career in Tokyo.#kinoshitajotennis | @japanopentennis pic.twitter.com/JQFrPq3Ta9

— ATP Tour (@atptour) October 21, 2023

Shelton reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open and the semi-finals at the US Open this year, but until Saturday he was the highest player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings not to have reached an ATP Tour final. He set that record straight by clinching a decisive break in the seventh game of the deciding set against Giron to seal his third three-set victory of the week in Japan.

“The legs are a little heavy today, but they’ll definitely be recovered by tomorrow, I’ll be ready to go,” said Shelton when asked how he was holding up physically. “I think if nothing else, adrenaline will get me through the match.”

Following Shelton and Giron on to court were Karatsev and home wild card Shintaro Mochizuki, whose dream run to the semi-finals has kept the Tokyo crowds in raptures this week. The #NextGenATP Japanese was unable to ride his momentum any further, however, as Karatsev triumphed 6-3, 6-4 to reach the championship match without having dropped a set across his four matches.

“Everybody came to support this young guy, it was something special to play here with the crowd full,” said Karatsev after his 94-minute win. “I tried to keep my game plan very simple, not pay too much attention to the crowd, and I managed to do it.”

With his win, Karatsev advanced to his fifth tour-level final, and his first since Sydney in January 2022 (d. Murray). The World No. 50 seeks his fourth ATP Tour crown when he faces Shelton, against whom he fell to a four-set defeat in the pair’s only previous Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting at the US Open in September.

Despite defeat, Mochizuki can look back on a breakthrough week in his homeland. The 20-year-old had not won a tour-level match prior to this week but has risen 84 spots to No. 131 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings as a result of his run. The 20-year-old has also propelled himself into contention for Next Gen ATP Finals qualification — he has risen 14 spots to 15th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Jeddah this week.