The best eight young players of the ATP tour will square off in Jeddah of Saudi Arabia over the next couple of days. This is the start of the upcoming season and the format of the Next Gen Finals is always compelling.
The eight players in Jeddah are divided into two groups: The Red and the Blue Group. In the Red group we’ve got Alex Michelsen and Nishesh Basavareddy from the States, Juncheng Shang from China, and Luca van Assche from France.
In the Blue group, we have the top seed, Arthur Fils from France, Leander Tien from the States, Jakub Mensik from the Czech Republic, and Joao Fonseca from Brazil.
The two best players from each group advance to the semi-finals.
The matches are played in best of five sets, but the sets are not played until someone has won six games. It is the first player to win four games who wins the set. There are no tie breaks in the sets and no advantages in the games. So the element of chance plays a much bigger role in this format than it usually does in the regular format that we are used to watching.
We will not do any match predictions of the Next Gen Finals until the semis and the finals come Saturday and Sunday. We find the element of chance in the group stage being a bit of a too big factor. The format is what it is. It can be funnier to watch than to bet on sometimes.
The winner of the Red group will be Alex Michelsen. I believe that Arthur Fils or Jakub Mensik will win the Blue group. My bet will be Mensik to win the Blue group.
