🏆 Ongoing Tournaments

Hey, Tennis Pro! Its finally Friday!

Fritz fries Felix. Everybody likes a good underdog story. Taylor Fritz tells an epic tale for his dream week in Turin.

The highest ranked American has just secured his place in the next stage of the ATP Finals by beating Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in their second all-time meeting. *Checks notes* Both results in favor of Taylor.

Beating Felix did not seem like an easy task, since the native of Montreal came from a high-level tennis year with four titles, a Grand Slam quarter-final and his career-high World No. 6 ranking.

In a match in which neither player's serve was broken for two and a half hours, the make-it-or-break-it bit came in the second set tie-break, in which Felix had the chance to reach the ATP Finals' last four for the first time.

Fritz withstood the pressure point and knocked out Auger-Aliassime, extending the tennis day to one more set in which he dominated with a booming 6-2.

The American continues with his dream debut in Turin, securing a place in the semi-finals in his first tournament appearance.

Now comes the good part... can he hurt a God-tier Nole? We'll see Saturday...

🤑 Finals' Players Bringin' in the Big Bucks

It was to be expected that the tour's bigger earners would occupy the highest positions in the ranking. However, this year more than ever, the importance of actually winning the tournaments is evident.

From the ATP Finals' qualifiers in Turin, no one played more matches in 2022 than Stefanos Tsitsipas. However, we see something very particular in the case of this year's Monte Carlo champion: his inability to wrap up tournaments in his favor.

The Greek did not tire of losing finals during 2022, thus including himself in the Historic Top 10 for most Masters 1000 finals lost in a single career.

On another topic... to give an indicator of the income dimensions brought in by the tour's top players: Diego Schwartzman.

The highest ranked Argentinian (#25) would've been below Taylor Fritz in matches played during the year, with 57. Of those almost sixty encounters, the native of Buenos Aires accumulates just $1.8M in his portfolio.

The American Golden Boy, with three more games, has earned nearly double that amount in the past 11 months.

Finally, (and most evident of all) is the pile of money produced by both Nadal and Djokovic. Although the two of them participated in certain occasional tournaments during the year, the main source of their income is due to the Grand Slams they took home (2 - Nadal, 1 - Djokovic).

PRO fact: Carlos Alcaraz would be in first place with $7.6M dollars.

🤌 Rafa says arrivederci to the 2022 season

Until yesterday, the ATP Finals' "surprise" title belonged to Casper Ruud. The Norwegian had secured his pass to the semi-finals since his last win versus Fritz on Tuesday and was facing a pending match against a leveled-down Nadal.

The Spaniard, who currently sits at No. 2 in the tour's ranking, finally put his hierarchy to work and outpointed Ruud in two straight sets.

Rafa's week has been full of criticism towards his on-court level and brought into question about his future performance. However, Spain's all-time winner swept aside the detractors and closed the year with a win against Casper, who until Wednesday had been dominating the Green Group.

Rafa goes back to his newborn son with an undefeated record of 5-0 against Top 5 players in 2022, three of these victories carried out in a Grand Slam.

Nothing but the best for Nadal. In this newsletter we continue to believe in a comeback as soon as the next season starts.

Vamooos Rafa!

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👋 So long, and thanks for all the tennis!

→ Rafa ends the 2022 season with a win.

→ Auger-Aliassime having a fun warm-up.

→ Taylor Fritz finding that backhand alley.

→ The closest call I've seen in a while.

→ Aslan Karatsev being a real life black knight.