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When Italian Mattia Bellucci earned his first Pepperstone ATP Rankings points in 2018, the youngster relished seeing his name amongst the stars he watched on TV, such as his idol, Rafael Nadal.

This season, the 21-year-old added his name to a new list. Bellucci advanced through qualifying en route to capturing his maiden ATP Challenger Tour title at the Saint-Tropez Challenger in October. He didn’t stop there.

At the Vilnius Challenger, the lefty dropped just one set all week en route to claiming back-to-back titles. Winning 12 straight matches was a welcome sight to Bellucci.

“I remember playing my first Futures in 2017 or 2018 and I got my first two [ranking] points and it felt amazing,” Bellucci said. “Being in the same rankings as my idols, even if I was like 1,000 something, it felt special.

A quartet of first-time ATP Head2Head meetings kick off the 2022 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals on Tuesday, when all eight competitors at the 21-and-under season finale will seek a fast start at the Allianz Cloud in Milan.

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[2] Lorenzo Musetti (ITA) vs. [6] Chun-Hsin Tseng (TPE)

The highest-ranked player in the event, World No. 23 Lorenzo Musetti will take to court for his Red Group battle against Chun-Hsin Tseng in confident mood following an impressive run of late-season form on European hard courts.

The 20-year-old won his second Tour title in Naples in October and took out Casper Ruud en route to the quarter-finals in Paris last week. He also has experience with the event’s innovative first-to-four-games, best-of-five-sets format, having gone 1-2 in the round-robin stage in 2021.

#NextGenATP stars Jack Draper and Dominic Stricker have been practising hard in Milan as they prepare to make their debuts at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals.

The Briton and Swiss lefty will both compete in Red Group at the 21-and-under event. However, before the action starts, the pair got to know each other at the weekend when they shared jokes while walking the streets of Milan.

“I am a cool guy,” Stricker told Draper when describing his personality. “In my free time I like to play games with my family and video games.”

“I would say I am a pretty chilled guy,” Draper replied. “Tennis is a big part of my life, but I like to be home and be with my family and friends. I like to chill and do normal things and be a normal 20-year-old.”

Draper will play Stricker in his opening match on Tuesday night. Both players feel they have what it takes to lift the trophy in Milan at the fifth edition of the event.

Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals begins Tuesday in Milan. But first, the 21-and-under stars took a walk outside the Allianz Cloud for this year’s official group photo.

As the seasons change in Milan, the players posed in front of a resplendent stretch of leaves a block away from the tournament venue.

From left to right, the players competing in this year’s Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals are Francesco Passaro, Chun-Hsin Tseng, Brandon Nakashima, Lorenzo Musetti, Jack Draper, Jiri Lehecka, Dominic Stricker and Matteo Arnaldi.

Green Group consists of Nakashima, Lehecka, Passaro and Arnaldi, while Red Group features Musetti, Draper, Tseng and Stricker.

Six of the eight competitors are tournament debutants, with the exception of home favourite Musetti and 2021 semi-finalist Nakashima. The tournament runs 8-12 November.

For Jiri Lehecka, sporting success runs in the family. His father was a swimmer and his mother was a track and field star. While the Czech has long enjoyed skiing, swimming and running, tennis was always his first passion. Lehecka struck his first shots at three years old with his grandmother, who competed in tennis at a national level, before he turned professional in 2020.

Now the 20-year-old is No. 74 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and is ready to make his mark in the game after enjoying a breakthrough season on the ATP Tour that started in Rotterdam in February.

“For me, [Rotterdam] was an unbelievable week because I started the year pretty fine,” Lehecka told ATPTour.com. “I qualified in Australia. I lost in the first round in four sets, so the season was starting pretty well for me. Then I had two or three weeks where I didn’t play good tennis. I played bad and didn’t feel good on court. Then my coach joined me at Rotterdam. We did some improvements and hard work and in Rotterdam it was an unbelievable week. A little surprising, but I was enjoying every moment there.”

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In a confidence-boosting week, Lehecka came through qualifying at the ATP 500 event before he earned his maiden tour-level win against Denis Shapovalov in the first round. He then defeated Botic van de Zandschulp and Lorenzo Musetti before Stefanos Tsitsipas halted his run in the semi-finals.

Last season, Brandon Nakashima made his mark at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals. The 21-year-old earned round-robin stage victories against Juan Manuel Cerundolo and Holger Rune before he lost to Sebastian Korda in a five-set semi-final thriller.

Twelve months on and the American is excited to be back in Milan where he is aiming to take the next step and triumph at the 21-and-under event.

“I had such great memories in Milan last year,” Nakashima told ATPTour.com. “I think the ATP and the tournament director do such a great job there. The atmosphere with the fans and everything is super nice, super cool. It’s always nice to just play a fun, competitive tournament with people your age. I think it’s going to be another great tournament this year.

“Last year I played Korda and that match was super exciting, [against a] fellow American. I think all these [young] guys have such great games and such unique games that bring different aspects to tennis that makes it so cool.”

After gaining a taste for Milan and the vocal Italian fans last year, Nakashima was determined to qualify again in 2022, making it a priority at the start of the season.

The 2022 season reaches its crescendo this week for eight of the ATP Tour’s brightest 21-and-under talents, who head to the Allianz Cloud in Milan to compete in the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals.

Lorenzo Musetti, Jack Draper and Brandon Nakashima headline the field in Italy from 8-12 November at an event renowned for its unique format and pioneering innovations.

As the action kicks off with a round-robin stage consisting of two group of four, ATPTour.com looks ahead at five things to watch from the 2022 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals.

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At the start of the Rolex Paris Masters, Wesley Koolhof knew a semi-final run would be enough to earn him a debut atop the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings. But the 33-year-old didn't stop there, finishing the week with his seventh title of the 2022 season, all won alongside Neal Skupski.

"It means everything, obviously. I think the first goal you have when you start playing tennis is you want to become World No. 1," Koolhof said after clinching the milestone achievement on Saturday. "I didn't know until I opened the [Pepperstone ATP] Live Rankings on Monday, because I saw the Nitto ATP Finals points drop off for Ram and Salisbury. [I] needed to make the semi-finals here [Paris] to be No. 1. It feels great to reach the goal."

Koolhof is the fourth Dutchman to rank No. 1 individually in the history of the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings, since 1976. He joins Tom Okker (1979), Paul Haarhuis (1994) and Jacco Eltingh (1995) in claiming the honour.

Set to be the top seeds at the Nitto ATP Finals, which begins 13 November, Koolhof and Skupski lead all doubles teams on the ATP Tour this season in wins (54), finals (10) and titles (seven). 

"It's been great," Koolhof said of the first-year partnership. "We first started playing together in Australia. We actually had a talk here in Bercy last year. I approached Neal [to ask] if he was available to play with next year. I think we just combined well from the first practice on. We've done very good, won a lot of matches, a lot of titles. I think it's very special to share this with Neal."

When Holger Rune began his 2022 season, he was No. 103 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and needed to enter qualifying at his first tournament of the year. The Danish teen will not need to worry about doing that again any time soon.

By defeating Novak Djokovic in the Rolex Paris Masters final on Sunday, Rune guaranteed he would crack the Top 10 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday at World No. 10. Rune is the first man from Denmark to accomplish the feat.

Only two active players broke into the Top 10 at a younger age than the 19-year-old — Rafael Nadal (18) and Carlos Alcaraz (18). Rune did so earlier than a laundry list of current and former superstars, including Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Marat Safin and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

“I didn't expect that at all four or five weeks ago but now I'm here,” said Rune, who will be the first alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.. “I'm super happy how I officially ended my season, and if there possibly is more matches, I'm just super excited for it. Right now I just can't wait to get some sleep, get some food, just relax totally.”

Photo Credit: Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour
This time last year, Rune and Carlos Alcaraz were competing in the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals. Now Rune is in the Top 10 and Alcaraz is well-positioned to finish year-end World No. 1. This is the first time two teenagers have been ranked inside the Top 10 in more than 15 years. Djokovic and Murray were teens in the elite group on 14 May 2007.

Novak Djokovic won five more points in the match. Holger Rune ran a specific serve strategy that won the point 16 of 18 times. There’s your upset in a nutshell.

Rune defeated Djokovic 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the Rolex Paris Masters final on Sunday on the back of dominating his service games with a Serve + 1 forehand approach. It was almost unstoppable. Rune won 89% (16/18) of points when he started with a serve and a forehand approach. In comparison, he came to the net only eight times behind a Serve +1 backhand approach, winning just three (38%).

Hit a serve. Hit a forehand approach. Collect the most impressive silverware of your emerging career.

Rune’s winning strategy was to take time away from Djokovic and take control of the point as quickly as possible. Rune served and volleyed eight times, winning five. He made contact with the ball 38 per cent of the time inside the baseline, compared to Djokovic’s 33 per cent. Rune took advantage of every opportunity to lean on the ball and make Djokovic defend. Rune hunted more forehands (165-147), repeatedly putting himself in an offensive situation in the point.Fortune favours a north-south strategy.

Rune was also the more opportunistic player on the court. He only saw three break points in the match, and converted every one. In stark contrast, Djokovic amassed 12 break points in the two hour and 33 minute encounter, but only managed to convert two of them. It must have felt like sand slipping through his fingers.

Holger Rune’s 2022 Rolex Paris Masters campaign could so easily have been an unremarkable first-round exit. Instead it became a career-altering run that featured five consecutive Top 10 wins and a first ATP Masters 1000 title, earning him a place as first alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals.

The 19-year-old Dane saved three match points in a first-round thriller against Stan Wawrinka, his lone opponent not inside the Top 10. But after dropping the opening set against the Swiss, he did not lose another until Sunday's final, a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 win against Novak Djokovic.

"It's quite incredible," Rune said of his dream week. "To stay here with the trophy, it's an amazing feeling. Something that was tough to expect, starting the week off having three match points down. Then now to be able to be here with this beautiful trophy is an absolutely amazing feeling."

Rune said the gravity of his accomplishment did not sink in immediately after the final, as he was focused on staying in the moment during the match. But he allowed himself to take a step back soon after.

"It was very emotional after the match. It's probably the best feeling of my life, of my whole career," he said. "It's kind of a small dream come true, even though I have bigger dreams. It's a really good step on the way to be able to play these kind of matches against one of the greatest players like Novak. To be able to win that last game was the biggest relief of my life. My stress level was very high, so I'm super happy to come through."

Novak Djokovic saw his twin 13-match win streaks snapped by Holger Rune in Sunday's Rolex Paris Masters final, but leaves the ATP Masters 1000 event full of confidence ahead of the Nitto ATP Finals. The Serbian had recorded 13 straight victories both overall and in Bercy, where he won the 2019 and 2021 titles.

Djokovic gave Rune full credit for the upset victory, providing a glowing assessment of both the Dane's level and his own.

"Of course I'm disappointed with the loss today, but I was very close. It was just very few points that decided a winner," he reflected. "But the level of tennis that I'm playing is high, and I like my chances [in Turin]. Of course, every match is like a final there. There are no easy matches."

While the Serbian rued his missed chances in the final, where he was seeking a record-extending seventh Paris title, he spent more time discussing the excellence of his 19-year-old opponent.

"He stayed composed also mentally all the way to the last shot," Djokovic said of Rune. "For somebody who is so young to show this composure and maturity in the big match like this is very impressive. He's had a week of his life, I mean, winning against five Top 10 players, it's quite impressive."

Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski clinched year-end No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Team Rankings on Sunday when they lifted the Rolex Paris Masters trophy. It is first time either player has been part of the year-end No. 1 duo.

The Dutchman and Briton made a quick start to their partnership at the beginning of the season and have not looked back. The pair has won seven titles this year, including triumphs at three ATP Masters 1000 events.

“[It means] a lot, obviously. It was one of the goals we set for this year. I think we’ve reached all the goals we set in January, so it means the world to us,” Koolhof said. “I think we’ve been playing great tennis from the start in Australia and managed to keep it going until here. We have one more week to go, so let’s continue this run in Turin.”

Koolhof and Skupski began 2022 by lifting trophies at ATP 250 events in Melbourne and Adelaide. That set the tone for the year, in which they have tallied a 54-17 record.

Their biggest victories of the season came at the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in Madrid, Montreal and Paris. They have also triumphed in Doha and ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Holger Rune has withdrawn from the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals. The Dane will be replaced by Italian Matteo Arnaldi.

The 19-year-old Rune, who competed in Milan last year, surged to his first ATP Masters 1000 title on Sunday at the Rolex Paris Masters. The teen will be the first alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.

Arnaldi will join the Green Group at the 21-and-under season finale, which will also feature Brandon Nakashima, Jiri Lehecka and Francesco Passaro. The Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals begins on Tuesday at the Allianz Cloud.

The 21-year-old Arnaldi has soared up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings the past two seasons, climbing nearly 900 places. The Italian won his first ATP Challenger Tour title this season in Italy and also reached Challenger finals in San Marino and France. 

Arnaldi is one of three Italians in the field with fellow home favourites Lorenzo Musetti and Passaro also competing. The trio will try to join Jannik Sinner as Italian Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals champions.

Holger Rune’s rapid rise hit a new milestone Sunday at the Rolex Paris Masters, where the 19-year-old staged a stunning comeback to down six-time Novak Djokovic 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 and clinch his maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown.

Having dropped the first set, the #NextGenATP Dane recovered from 0/40 in the opening game of the second and a 1-3 deficit in the third, saving six break points in the final game as he dug deep to defeat Djokovic and claim the biggest title of his young career in dramatic fashion.

"It means everything to me, a perfect way to finish the week," said Rune. "It's a privilege to share the court with Novak."

In a head-spinning rise for the teen this week, Rune surges to 10th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin and will serve as first alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals (13-20 November). As a result, he has withdrawn from next week's Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

Rune was playing in his fourth consecutive ATP Tour final and has now won 19 of his past 21 matches. The Dane’s title run in Paris will also lift him to a career-high No. 10 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings on Monday.

Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski completed an ATP Masters 1000 hat-trick for 2022 on Sunday with victory at the Rolex Paris Masters, where the Dutch-British pairing held off the in-form Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek in the championship match.

Dodig and Krajicek were playing in their fourth ATP Tour final in as many weeks in France, but second seeds Koolhof and Skupski were clinical in securing a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory. It was a third Masters 1000 crown for the team following its triumphs in Madrid and Montreal, and it has now won seven tour-level titles since coming together at the start of the 2022 season. Sunday's win also confirmed Koolhof and Skupski as the year-end No. 1 team in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings.

“[It means] a lot, obviously,” said Koolhof after he and Skupski confirmed their status as year-end No. 1. “It was one of the goals we set for this year. I think we reached all the goals we set in January, so it means the world to us. I think we’ve been playing great tennis from the start in Australia and managed to keep it going until here. We have one more week to go, so let’s continue this run in Turin.”

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Despite letting slip a 4-1 lead early in France, Koolhof and Skupski held firm to take the opening set in a tie-break. A break in the third game of the second was enough for the second seeds to seal the title as they wrapped a clinical 93-minute victory in which they converted two of three break point opportunities.

Brandon Nakashima and Chun-Hsin Tseng will compete at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan next week.

Prior to the action getting underway, however, the #NextGenATP stars swapped the tennis court for the football pitch on Saturday when they went to watch Italian giants AC Milan face Spezia Calcio in Serie A.

Nakashima and Tseng supported AC Milan from the touchline, cheering the home side on to an important 2-1 win at the San Siro Stadium. The pair also posed for photos with AC Milan legends Franco Baresi [bottom right] and Daniele Massaro [bottom left], while they spoke and took pictures with young fans.

Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
Nakashima and Tseng will now turn their attention to the 21-and-under event at the Allianz Cloud. The 21-year-old American Nakashima, who is making his second appearance in Milan, is in Green Group. Tseng, 21, of Chinese Taipei is making his debut and will compete in Red Group.

When Chun-Hsin Tseng was growing up, he enjoyed all sports. Baseball, one of the most popular sports in his home country of Chinese Taipei, was not at the top of his list.

“In school we did not [have] original baseball, but you hit the ball and the rules are similar like [in] baseball,” Tseng recalled. “I really like the feeling when you hit the ball so far and you run the bases, so that’s why I started [it] when I was very young.”

Tseng never fully immersed himself in the sport, though. It took until the Covid-19 pandemic for him to begin watching more baseball videos on the Internet. Once he did, it became a major part of his life. Playing professional tennis is Tseng’s career, vut baseball has become part of what helps fuel the 21-year-old’s success.

Some players warm up for practice by riding a bike in the gym or kicking around a football. Tseng throws a baseball like a pitcher.

“Now I’m following the [baseball] highlights every day. I really like to watch baseball and also I like to throw,” said Tseng, who travels with a baseball glove. “I always do it before my practice. It’s good to warm up my shoulder. The motion is similar like my serve, so it also helped me to serve better.”

Holger Rune had just broken into the Top 150 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings before his first meeting with Novak Djokovic at the 2021 US Open. Now, the 19-year-old Dane has a chance to make his Top 10 debut with a win against the Serbian in Sunday's Rolex Paris Masters final (3pm CET/9am ET).

The #NextGenATP star has shown that the future is now by reaching four straight finals during the indoor season, and he rides an 18-2 record during that stretch into his clash with Djokovic. After snapping Felix Auger-Aliassime's 16-match win streak in the semis, the Stockholm champion will seek his fifth Top 10 win in as many days in his first ATP Masters 1000 final. He will need to end Djokovic's twin 13-match winning runs to earn it, with the Serbian streaking both in Paris — where he won the title in both 2019 and 2021 — and overall.

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With wins against Hubert Hurkacz, Andrey Rublev, Carlos Alcaraz and Auger-Aliassime on the week, Rune has soared six spots to No. 12 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings. Victory against Djokovic would also move him into 10th place in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, which would make him the fist alternate at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Defending Paris champ Djokovic, who dropped a set to Rune in their US Open first-round meeting, has seen the Dane's rise first-hand.

Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek clinched the last spot at the Nitto ATP Finals on Saturday following a late-season surge. The Croatian-American duo will compete at the Pala Alpitour in Turin from 13-20 November.

Since arriving in Florence in October they have won 14 of their 15 matches to earn their place at the season finale. The pair defeated Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies in the Rolex Paris Masters semi-finals to guarantee their qualification.

Dodig and Krajicek first partnered in April in Belgrade before triumphing in Lyon. They then advanced to the final at Roland Garros final, where they defeated fellow Turin qualifiers Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury and Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos before falling short in the championship match to Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer.

The new team reached the final in Florence before lifting the trophy in back-to-back weeks in Naples and Basel. In Paris, they are into their first Masters 1000 final as a team.

Dodig and Krajicek join Wesley Koolhof/Neal Skupski, Ram/Salisbury, Arevalo/Rojer, Nikola Mektic/Mate Pavic, Granollers/Zeballos, Lloyd Glasspool/Harri Heliovaara and Thanasi Kokkinakis/Nick Kyrgios in Turin.