Alcaraz plays for double the prize vs. Musetti in the group final of the Nitto ATP Finals

Two singles semifinals will be decided at the Nitto ATP Finals on Thursday, while round-robin play will conclude in the Jimmy Connors Group.

A win for Carlos Alcaraz against Lorenzo Musetti would take first place in the group and ATP Year-End No. 1, presented by PIF awards, for the Spaniard, while Alex de Minaur needs a straight sets victory against Taylor Fritz – coupled with a victory over Alcaraz – to progress. Alcaraz leads the group at 2-0 after two games, followed by Fritz at 1-1, Musetti at 1-1 and De Minaur at 0-2.

The Peter Fleming Group also closes the doubles on Thursday. Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori look to complete a perfect round-robin campaign when they take on the 0-2 team of Tim Puetz and Kevin Krawietz, before a win-and-advance showdown pitting top seeds Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool against Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.

[1] Carlos Alcaraz (ESP) against… [9] Lorenzo Musetti (ITA)
Alcaraz is among the most fearless competitors on the ATP Tour, but the plucky 22-year-old admitted nerves could play a role in this high-stakes match against Musetti. Against the home favorite and the Italian crowd, Alcaraz knows very well what is at stake.

A win would send him through to the semifinals with a perfect 3–0 group record and his second year-end No. 1 ranking in the PIF ATP Rankings, his first since 2022.

“I’ll try not to think about it,” Alcaraz said after a 6-7(2), 7-5, 6-3 win against Fritz in Turin on Tuesday. “It will be a very big match for me. I will try not to let the nerves have a bad time in the match. I will think about my goals, about the fact that I feel much better than today.”

After winning his opening match at the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time in three attempts, beating De Minaur on Sunday, Alcaraz achieved his first set-down victory against Fritz in Turin. Discussing the physical and emotional stress of that nearly three-hour match, he welcomed the day off ahead of the group final. There would be another day off before the semi-finals, a luxury that the players of the Bjorn Borg Group could not have.

Musetti himself won a brutal three-setter against De Minaur on Tuesday, fighting back from a break in the third set for a 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 result – his first win in his Nitto ATP Finals tournament debut. Although he struggled physically at times, he used his “big heart and great passion for this game” to fight back, much to the delight of the home crowd.

“I am a warrior,” Musetti said. “Mentally I have improved a lot and I push myself to the limit because I play against the top players every match. The next match is against Carlos. I know how difficult it is, especially in these conditions. I will try to enjoy and fight like I did today.”

Alcaraz and Musetti have met on some of the game’s biggest stages this season, with Alcaraz having impressive encounters in Monte Carlo, Rome and Roland Garros, winning the title at all three events. Despite trailing Alcaraz 1-6 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head with six straight defeats, the Italian managed to beat his rival in two of their three matches this season – all on clay.

Both players come from clay, although Alcaraz’s play has translated into more success on hard courts. While Musetti may have the home crowd advantage, the fast conditions favor the versatile Alcaraz. But at his best, Musetti is one of the few men on the ATP Tour who can match Alcaraz in both strength and artistry. After the thriller De Minaur, can the Italian paint another masterpiece against the top performer?

[6] Taylor Fritz (USA) vs… [7] Alex de Minaur (AUS)
Despite heartbreaking defeats for both on Tuesday, Fritz and De Minaur still have a chance to progress to the semi-finals in Turin. Fritz controls his own destiny, with one win enough to reach the knockout rounds of the Nitto ATP Finals for the third time. De Minaur needs an immediate victory to stay in contention, and would then argue for Alcaraz to send him through with an evening victory over Musetti.

Fritz and De Minaur were both immediately left reeling after their performances on Tuesday, with the Australian taking the loss particularly hard.

“If I really want to be serious about taking the next step in my career, I can’t lose these matches. I just can’t do that,” De Minaur said after failing to close Musetti 5-3 in the final set. “I mean, I feel like I’ve lost a lot of it this year. More than anything, it gets to the point where it’s killing me mentally.”

Adding to the pain was the fact that De Minaur was denied his first Nitto ATP Finals victory in two appearances; he is now 0-5 in Turin between his debut last season and this current season. After racking up a career-best 55 wins this season, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, the Australian will be keen to add at least one more to his tally.

Fritz had Alcaraz on the ropes in the second set of their meeting, but after missing two break points in a fifth marathon game in the second set, he did not earn another break chance in the match.

“I had the opportunities. I had everything I could ask for,” he reflected. “What’s frustrating is that most of the opportunities that come to mind were all about the fact that I had the ball that I really wanted to attack on, but I just wasn’t hitting it well enough.”

The American credited his aggressive return with creating opportunities to attack on return, and he hopes to get many more opportunities to dictate against De Minaur. Although the Australian is not as attacking-minded as Alcaraz, he knows how to do damage on hard courts: his 42 victories on the surface this season are the most on the ATP Tour.

The pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head is dead even at 5-5, although they haven’t played since Fritz won two end-of-season encounters in 2024, at the Nitto ATP Finals and the Davis Cup.

Double action
The standings in the Peter Fleming Group make for a very easy Thursday. At 2-0 and with a perfect 4-0 set record, Italians Bolelli and Vavassori have taken top spot in the group – although they will still be playing for significant PIF ATP Doubles Rankings points and prize money when they face Krawietz and Puetz, whose title defense will end in the round-robin stage.

Cash and Glasspool, who clinched the year-end ATP doubles No. 1 spot presented by PIF honors on Tuesday by beating the Germans, will face third seeds Granollers and Zeballos in what essentially amounts to a quarter-final: the winner of that evening showdown will advance to the semi-finals in second place.

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