There is one thing you can be sure of with Dominic Thiem this week – nobody in the eight-man field has worked harder than him to make it to the Nitto ATP Finals. While rising up the Emirates ATP Rankings, the 24-year-old Austrian has gained a reputation for being one of the Stakhanovites of the ATP World Tour – the suggestion being he’s as dedicated and productive as the worker once mythologised by the former Soviet Union for his industry. If there is a significant tournament on, you will usually find Thiem as one of its participants. He loves to play, and is certainly not a disciple of the trend among some of the elite who lean towards a ‘less...
If, as someone once said, Andy Murray resembles “a tennis pro drawn by Dr Seuss”, then David Goffin, as a Belgian with blonde hair, pink cheeks and a lean frame, is always going to attract comparisons with Hergé’s creation: Tintin. So don’t be at all surprised if the 26-year-old’s matches by The Thames are presented in some quarters as The Adventures of David Goffin. And Goffin himself has hardly distanced himself from this in the past, telling one interviewer that if he could be any comic book character, he would be Tintin. Weighing a Tintin-esque 68 kilograms, which is under 11 stone, Goffin is comfortably the lightest qualifier for this year’s Nitto ATP Finals – for comparison, Rafael Nadal and...
In the controlled conditions of The O2 in London, venue of the Nitto ATP Finals, the eight singles qualifiers will pit their A-games against one another for one of the sport’s prestigious prizes. Three of the competitors — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev — have recorded five (or more) victories over Top 10 stars in the Emirates ATP Rankings. Federer, the 2003-04, 2006-07 and 2010-11 Nitto ATP Finals champion, will be looking to add to his ATP World Tour-best seven titles in 2017 at the season finale, which begins on 12 November. The Swiss superstar is 11-1 (.917) against fellow Top 10 players in the Emirates ATP Rankings this year, with his lone loss coming to Zverev in...
As a dad, you need to pick your battles with your kids. So while I wouldn't ever want to jam my story down my sons' throats, I like to give them a few examples here and there of what I accomplished as a tennis player, including how I won this tournament five times. They're 12 and 14, and I'm teaching them how I was never just handed a trophy, and how I had to work hard, and make lots of sacrifices, to be the best in the world. I'm telling them how you can achieve anything, just so long as you want it badly enough. My kids are proud of my career and curious, too, and occasionally they might come...
Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Marin Cilic, Grigor Dimitrov, David Goffin and Jack Sock will compete for the title at the 2017 Nitto ATP Finals, to be held 12-19 November at The O2.