ATP World Tour Finals tournament betting preview, free tips and where to watch

Free tennis tips, best bets and analysis for the ATP World Tour Finals.

Where to watch

Amazon Prime & BBC2, from midday Sunday

Best bets

Dominic Thiem to win ATP Finals
1pt each-way 20-1 general
Daniil Medvedev to win Group Andre Agassi
2pts 7-4 bet365

Tournament preview

Novak Djokovic is chasing the ATP’s year-end number one ranking at the World Tour Finals this week and the battle-hardened Serb is likely to prove hard to beat at London’s O2 Arena.

The 32-year-old, a dominant winner of the Paris Masters two weeks ago, needs to win the tournament and hope that current world number one Rafael Nadal fails to escape the group stage if he’s to return to the summit.

With Nadal’s participation in the balance due to an abdominal injury, that scenario looks entirely possible and it is hard to get away from 5-4 favourite Djokovic, who is drawn alongside fellow legend Roger Federer, world number five Dominic Thiem and Tour Finals debutant Matteo Berrettini in Group Bjorn Borg.

Nadal, meanwhile, is joined in Group Andre Agassi by defending champion Alexander Zverev, breakout star Daniil Medvedev and Greek youngster Stefanos Tsitsipas. Fitness problems have forced the Majorcan out of this tournament in the past - he has played in only two of the last five years and withdrew after one match in 2017.

Djokovic won four in a row in Greenwich between 2012 and 2015 before being beaten by Andy Murray in a duel for the number one ranking in 2016, but Grigor Dimitrov and Zverev have since pulled off upsets to win the event and a similar tale could unfold this week.

Federer was beaten in the Shanghai quarter-finals by Zverev, won Basel as usual, and then skipped Paris, but he has tended to come up short on the biggest stages this year while bookmakers are now showing Medvedev full respect in the market. The Russian is third favourite ahead of Nadal, but there’s little value in his price now.

Defending champ Zverev remains short on confidence, Tsitsipas looks jaded, while this test may come a season too early for Berrettini, and that leaves Thiem as the outsider most likely to make a challenge.

Bookmakers believe his draw is a handicap, but the Austrian boasts a positive 4-2 head-to-head over Federer, including a victory over the Swiss in the Indian Wells final, and he’s enjoying a new-found love for hard-court tennis since linking up with coach Nicolas Massu in the spring.

The 26-year-old has since won 500 Series events on the surface in China and his native Austria in recent weeks, his run to the Vienna title surely contributing to a second-round exit in Bercy, and he should be much fresher for this season-ending assignment.

Medvedev has been hugely consistent over the second half of the season, reaching six finals since the start of August including the US Open, and he should capitalise if Nadal is operating at anything less than 100 per cent. He’s worth backing for group honours.

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