Saturday offers the semi-final battles of the Tournament of Champions

London is the final weekend and all of the top 4 in the ATP rankings will be competing for hard court victories. The last one to secure a spot in Saturday’s match was the number one ranked player – Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, who will face Dominic Thiem. The other semifinal pairing is Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev.

The Tournament of Champions will culminate on Sunday with the final match between the two tennis giants. What we don’t know yet is the line-up. Four players in the top four of the ATP rankings will battle it out for the last final of the Tournament of Champions at the 02 Arena in London, and the winner could take home up to a million and a half dollars.

Saturday’s semi-finals will be contested by the pair of Djokovic and Thiem, whose clash will begin at 3pm CET. Novak Djokovic, as the number one man in world tennis, is the favourite.

Austrian Thiem, however, has already managed to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas, the defending champion from last year, and then Rafael Nadal, but lost to Andrey Rublemev in his last group match.

Djokovic first faced Argentina’s Schwartzman, whom he defeated 6-3 and 6-2. He fell to Russia’s Medvedev in his next match, but secured his place in the last four with a win over Germany’s Zverev on Friday.

Should the Serb win the tournament, he would be able to break the record for wins in this event, which is currently held by the legendary Swiss Roger Federer.

The second semi-final will be played between Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev from 9pm and it seems that the Russian tennis player could go into this match as the favourite. He is the only one who has handled all his opponents so far and should beat Nadal, who is not as comfortable on hard surfaces as he is on his beloved clay.

What could play to his disadvantage, however, is the late Friday match against Diego Schwartzman, but the other semifinal is also scheduled for the evening hours.

Rafael Nadal has played three great matches, but it was evident that he is still getting used to the hard surface. Compared to his performance in Paris, where he dominated the event held on clay, there is a certain “uncertainty” in his game.

Thiem took advantage of this, breaking Nadal in both sets only in the tie-break. But the Spaniard picked himself up after that unlucky battle and with a win in Thursday’s last group match against Greece’s Tsitsipas, he made it through to the semi-finals.

A lucrative bonus and lots of points

The top prize is winning a million and a half dollars. However, this will only go to the winner without a loss in the whole tournament and that can only be Daniil Medvedev, the others have already failed to win a match.

For the finalists there is still a bonus of 550 thousand dollars and 500 points in the ATP table. Semi-finalists will get 400 thousand dollars and participants of the basic groups 153 thousand dollars.

200 points will be added to the ranking for the main group, 400 for the semi-finals and 500 for the final. The final will be played in London on Sunday at 3pm.

Source:: livesport.cz