The Spanish Rafael Nadal will avoid the Swiss Roger Federer in the group stage of the ATP Finals and will face the Russian Daniil Medvedev, his rival in the US Open final, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the German Alexander Zverev, champion last year in London.
While Nadal will command the Agassi group, Federer has fallen into the Borg group, alongside Serbian Novak Djokovic, Austrian Dominic Thiem and Italian Matteo Berrettini.
This draw comes after the statement issued by Nadal in which he explains that he will travel to London this Wednesday to prepare for the tournament, once the tests carried out on his abdominal injury have revealed that he only has a small strain and that there is no break.
The Spaniard will be tested on Thursday and Friday and will try to be ready for Sunday or Monday, when he will debut against Zverev. It will be the sixth confrontation between Nadal and Zverev, with a 5-0 favorable face-to-face for the Spaniard, although it will be their first indoor clash.
Medvedev has been beaten both times, including this year’s epic finale at Flushing Meadows, while Tsitsipas is the only member of the group who knows what it’s like to beat Nadal. He did it this year at the 1,000 Masters in Madrid, although Nadal has beaten him in the other four times they have met.
As a backdrop for this Masters Cup will be the fight for number one at the end of the year. The distance of 640 points that Nadal has in the classification with respect to Djokovic causes that, in case the Serbian wins the tournament undefeated, to retain the number one, Nadal has to reach the final, being able to leave a single match on the way in the ’round robin’.
In this tournament, each match won in the group stage awards 200 points, while the triumph in the semifinals is 600 points and winning the final gives 500 extra points.
In addition, for Nadal it would be the first time that he conquered this tournament, in which he registered two finals, the last in 2013. For his part, Federer leads the list of the competition with six winches, while Djokovic has five and is tied with Ivand Lendl. EFE