Eight #NextGenATP players are set to compete in Milan for the second annual Next Gen ATP Finals title.

On Sunday evening, the eight Milan contenders: Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alex de Minaur, Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz, Andrey Rublev, Jaume Munar, Hubert Hurkacz and Liam Caruana were split into two groups, within which each player will contest three matches, with two competitors per group emerging into the knockout semi-finals.

Group A
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Frances Tiafoe
Hubert Hurkacz
Jaume Munar

Group B
Alex de Minaur
Taylor Fritz
Andrey Rublev
Liam Caruana

Tsitsipas, who defeated four Top 10 opponents en route to the Toronto final and lifted his first ATP World Tour trophy in Stockholm last month, is No. 16 in the ATP Rankings, the highest-ranked player in the field.

The Greek leads Group A, in which there are three other players whom he has never contested a FedEx ATP Head2Head match against. Joining the event’s top seed are American Frances Tiafoe, Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz and Spaniard Jaume Munar.

“I think our group is much better than Group B,” Tsitsipas said on stage at the Nhow Hotel, joking.

In seriousness, Tsitsipas is in a far different position at this season’s Next Gen ATP Finals. One year ago, the Greek was an alternate in Milan. Now, he is one of the leading candidates to capture the tournament’s second crown, following in Hyeon Chung’s footsteps.

“I’m really satisfied,” Tsitsipas said. “I think I belong here.”

The only Group A athletes who have played one another at tour-level are Tiafoe and Hurkacz. Tiafoe defeated Poland’s top player in straight sets at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.

The American has enjoyed the best season of his career, winning his maiden ATP World Tour title at the Delray Beach Open and climbing as high as No. 38 in the ATP Rankings. The 20-year-old will hope that experience helps him earn a berth in the Milan semi-finals.

Group B is led by De Minaur, an Aussie who advanced to his first two ATP World Tour finals (Sydney and Washington, D.C.) and also captured his maiden ATP Challenger Tour trophy in 2018. De Minaur ascended as high as No. 31 in the ATP Rankings this year.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting this,” De Minaur said. “It’s been a great year, I’ve played some unbelievable tennis.”

The 19-year-old will hope that continues at the Fiera Milano, where he was grouped with American Taylor Fritz, 2017 Milan competitor Andrey Rublev and Italian wild card Liam Caruana.

Both De Minaur and Fritz have defeated Rublev in their only previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings. It’s hard to forget De Minaur’s win over the Russian, which came in the semi-finals of the Citi Open earlier this year. The Australian saved four match points in a row from 2/6 down in the second-set tie-break before eventually moving into his first ATP World Tour 500-level final after two hours and 52 minutes.

Fritz ousted Rublev in more straightforward fashion, dismissing the 2017 Umag champion in straight sets at this year’s BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. Caruana will try to be the ‘x-factor’ in the group, as he carries the momentum of three wins in three days in the Italian 21-and-under wild card event.

While Caruana has played just one tour-level match, he knows Fritz well, residing in Texas and practising with him in the past. The Italian also played both De Minaur and Rublev once each when they were juniors.

And while the FedEx ATP Head2Head series don’t favour Rublev, the Russian can rely on his experience competing in Milan last year, when he advanced to the championship match.

“I’m really happy to be back,” Rublev said.

Karen Khachanov’s backswing on his forehand looks like a serpent coiling to strike. It’s big and menacing and his extreme wrist bend provides opponents with no clue where this venomous shot is going to bite them.

Khachanov stunned Novak Djokovic 7-5, 6-4 in the final of the Rolex Paris Masters Sunday, with the Russian’s forehand running rampant all over the court.

Djokovic at times looked exhausted from his three hour, three minute semi-final encounter with Roger Federer, and a week-long battle with the flu, but Khachanov still had to reach out and claim the biggest title of his career, with his unorthodox forehand being the driving force.

Khachanov Forehand Winners = 12

The most efficient strategy Khachanov employed to set up a forehand winner was to hit it as his first shot after a serve. He hit six Serve +1 forehand winners, with half rocketing past Djokovic’s forehand wing and the other three directed to the backhand. The Russian also chipped in with a forehand return winner.

The other five forehand winners displayed the versatility of the 6’6″ Russian’s game. One was a standard groundstroke from the baseline, one was at the front of the court, another was an approach, and the other two were scintillating, on-the-run passing shots that brought the Parisian crowd to their feet and Djokovic to his knees. 

Of the 13 forehand groundstroke errors Djokovic committed in the match, six came from a Khachanov forehand groundstroke, and one from a forehand return.

The backswing on Khachanov’s forehand is extremely difficult to decipher any clues from as to what destination it will ultimately rocket towards, and his patterns of play are equally confounding.

Khachanov hit 41 per cent of his forehands to the outer third of the Ad court (to Djokovic’s backhand), and 42 per cent to the outer third of the Deuce court, stretching Djokovic wide off the court to hit his own forehand. Only 17 per cent of Khachanov’s forehands landed in the middle of the court. When Khachanov created time to wind up and crush a big forehand, it was simply unreadable for Djokovic to predict where it was going.

Khachanov was also far more likely to step forward to the ball on his forehand side to attack than off his backhand wing. The Russian made contact with 25 per cent of his forehands inside the baseline, but only managed to do that 11 per cent of the time on his backhand side. 

Khachanov hit some blistering forehands in the match, but surprisingly he averaged hitting his forehand slower than Djokovic overall. The Russian would quite often add heavy spin with his extreme western grip to create a short angle and run Djokovic or hit it higher over the net with more shape to get the ball up out of the Serb’s strike zone.

Average Rally Speed
Forehands

• Khachanov = 113kph
• Djokovic = 120kph

   

  Backhands

• Khachanov = 108kph
• Djokovic = 111kph

  Both players ended up hitting slightly more backhands than forehands for the match, but Khachanov was able to do more damage with his when he did get to hit it.

   

  Total Groundstrokes

• Khachanov = 105 forehands / 121 backhands
• Djokovic = 109 forehands / 111 backhands

Djokovic took control of the match early in the first set, leading 3-1, 30-0 on serve, but inexplicably lost 10 straight points to lose all his early momentum. Khachanov’s forehand had a lot to do with that purple patch, striking four forehand winners in the span of six points, with an additional two Djokovic groundstroke errors coming after a Khachanov forehand.

Khachanov’s funky forehand technique may very well come with a “do not try this at home” label, but it was his weapon of choice that helped capture the biggest title of his career in Paris. He makes it work, and then some.

– Hawkeye data used in this story is courtesy ATP Media.

– Craig O’Shannessy is a member of Novak Djokovic’s coaching team.

Frances Tiafoe is a bit too busy to be launching any political campaigns. But when the 20-year-old, who’s making his Next Gen ATP Finals debut this week, finds the time and energy to devote to politics, one of the people who knows him best thinks Tiafoe might be a natural for the field.

Nearly three years ago, when trainer Paul Kinney started working with Tiafoe, the teen-aged American was playing ATP Challenger Tour events. Tiafoe’s outgoing and laid-back personality endeared him to nearly everyone – players, officials and organisers – at every tournament.

Kinney remembers Tiafoe’s morning routine as follows: First, he’d set his bags of gear down at a table to eat breakfast, but then he’d see someone he knew and stroll over to them to talk, then there was someone else and someone else and someone else and someone else. Twenty minutes later, Tiafoe was left scanning the room, trying to remember where he rested his racquets.

Kinney called him “The Mayor.” “You’re meeting with all of your constituents,” Kinney joked.

Read More: 2017 NextGenATP Class Continues To Soar

Tiafoe is still as outgoing and energetic as ever, but this year the affable right-hander has found a way to balance the jokes with the work and have his best year yet.

Before 2018, he was 9-29 in tour-level matches. Too often, he’d get close to the end line but fall short. He was 4-13 in deciding sets.

But Tiafoe enters the Next Gen ATP Finals, which starts Tuesday, with a 26-23 record this year, including 11-8 in deciding sets.

“I had a ton of tight matches with a lot of guys, but I always took the short end of the stick. Now I’m beating these guys,” said Tiafoe, who used to play defensively during big moments late in matches. “Now I’m feeling really comfortable when it gets tight. I actually embrace it, I want it… Now I just take it. If I’m going to lose that way, that’s fine.”

Watch: Tiafoe Qualifies For Milan

The on-court change stems from an overall new mindset that Tiafoe has carried with him this year. His coaches and Kinney all say that the right-hander is taking more ownership of his career and applying what he’s learned from his first two years on tour.

His coaches see it in the way he pays more attention to details in planning meetings, such as when they discuss upcoming goals or practice agendas.

“He’s asking more questions about his tennis, he’s trying to prepare a little bit better than he used to,” coach Robby Ginepri told ATPWorldTour.com. “Before, he would just show up and just thought he had to hit a yellow tennis ball and whatever happened, happened.”

Tiafoe said: “I think I’m just holding myself way more accountable, just really believing.”

The accountability extends to his work with Kinney as well. Besides his daily town hall meetings as “The Mayor”, Kinney remembers Tiafoe as a teenager with few, if any, routines.

Even the way Tiafoe dressed himself in the morning changed from day to day. “Shoes, shorts, shirt. Sometimes it was shirt, shoes, shorts… Everything was just kind of, ‘I’m going to throw on whatever I’m thinking’,” Kinney told ATPWorldTour.com. “The one routine that he had that was consistent wasn’t his alone: When you wake up in the morning the first thing you do is roll over and grab your phone.”

Read More: For Tsitsipas, One Year Has Made All The Difference

That routine is why, in the beginning of their partnership, Kinney had to take Tiafoe’s phone away from him for an hour so they could get their work done. “Those people writing you, they aren’t going anywhere. Those text messages aren’t going to get deleted,” Kinney would say.

But slowly, Tiafoe has matured, and Kinney has helped him establish routines that have led to another injury-free year, despite the fact that Tiafoe more than doubled the amount of tour-level matches he played, from 2017 to 2018 (24 to 49).

“The best part is his trainer Paul Kinney has kept him healthy all year, and he’s been able to play a long, full season,” Ginepri said.

Tiafoe thought his long 2017 campaign would also finish in Milan. Zack Evenden, Tiafoe’s assistant coach and hitting partner, said the group thought it was a given Tiafoe would be among the world’s best 21-and-under players at the Fiera Milano during the inaugural event.

But Tiafoe finished 110 points behind final qualifier Daniil Medvedev of Russia. So this year, Tiafoe and his coaches wanted to leave no doubt.

Read & Watch: 5 Things To Know About Tiafoe

“We didn’t want to cut it close; we didn’t even want to think about it,” Evenden told ATPWorldTour.com. “We knew we were going to be in Milan by the end of the season.”

Ginepri views the event as another folder in Tiafoe’s growing portfolio of experiences, a binder that may one day include a trip to the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, where the top eight players in the world compete for the season’s final title.

“[In Milan,] you get a chance to see what it’s like to play late in the season, like at the Nitto ATP Finals, where ultimately these guys want to play in their career,” Ginepri said.

The coach, however, isn’t expecting Tiafoe to take advantage of one of the tournament’s key innovations – the availability of mid-match coaching at the end of each set.

The maturing Tiafoe, Ginepri said, can usually problem solve well on his own, as he’s shown throughout the best year of his career.

“He might not even utilise me to be honest,” Ginepri said. “He feels his way around the court pretty well.”