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Holger Rune took his stellar late-season form to another level on Saturday at the Rolex Paris Masters, where the #NextGenATP Dane dispatched Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-2 to reach his maiden ATP Masters 1000 final.

Rune took control early in a meeting between two of the in-form players on the ATP Tour, using his aggressive groundstrokes to dictate play wherever possible and heap pressure on the Auger-Aliassime serve. Both players were competing for a spot in their fourth consecutive ATP Tour final, but the 19-year-old Rune converted three of eight break points to wrap a comprehensive 88-minute win.

“It was an unbelievable match from my side today,” said Rune after his triumph. “I really was sticking to the game plan for the whole match and just taking every chance I got. Putting Felix under pressure, that’s what my game plan was all about, and I managed to do it almost perfectly. I am super proud how I handled everything.”

Fourth final in a row. Fourth top-10 win in a row ?@holgerrune2003 snaps Auger-Aliassime’s SIXTEEN-match winning streak to reach his maiden Masters 1000 final in Paris!#RolexParisMasters pic.twitter.com/gcfq107ye9

It was the second meeting between Rune and Auger-Aliassime in the space of six days, following the latter’s straight-sets triumph in the Basel final on Sunday. Yet the Canadian could not match Rune’s intensity or quality in Paris as the Dane convincingly halted Auger-Aliassime’s winning streak at 16 matches.

The first balls have been struck in the leadup to the 2022 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals.

Brandon Nakashima and Francesco Passaro on Saturday morning enjoyed the first training session ahead of the 21-and-under season finale. 

Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
It will not be the last time Nakashima stand across the net from one another this week in Milan. Both #NextGenATP stars were drawn into Green Group alongside Denmark's Holger Rune and the Czech Republic's Jiri Lehecka.

Nakashima is competing at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals for the second consecutive year. In 2021, the American advanced to the semi-finals in Milan.

“It feels great to be back here. I had such a great time last year. I think the tournament, the ATP does a great job here, so I’m really looking forward to playing here again,” Nakashima said. “Again this year the field is very strong. All of us had such great years with great consistency, doing well at the big tournaments, so I think it’s going to be a great tournament for the fans to watch and for us players to compete against each other [in].”

The groups for the 2022 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals were set Saturday in Milan.

Italian Lorenzo Musetti is making his second appearance at the 21-and-under event and will lead Red Group alongside Jack Draper, Chun-Hsin Tseng and Dominic Stricker.

Dane Holger Rune arrives in Italy off the back of a standout season, having won two tour-level titles. The 19-year-old will compete in Green Group with Brandon Nakashima, Jiri Lehecka and Francesco Passaro.

Green Group

Red Group

Stefanos Tsitsipas won two of his first three ATP Head2Head matchups against Novak Djokovic, but the Serbian has owned their rivalry since then, winning seven straight matches. Djokovic will now put that streak — and two others — on the line when he meets the Greek in Saturday's Rolex Paris Masters semi-finals.

Djokovic is the underdog by seeding in Bercy, but not by form. The sixth seed carries dual 12-match win streaks into the semis, both overall and at the ATP Masters 1000 event, where he has won titles in his past two appearances in 2019 and 2021. He has not dropped a set this week, cruising past Maxime Cressy, Karen Khachanov and Lorenzo Musetti as he looks to win his third straight ATP Tour trophy after triumphs in Tel Aviv and Astana.

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"No one is unbeatable, but I've had plenty of success on this court and I think every single year that I come back, the confidence level is higher," the six-time champion said after reaching his eighth semi-final at the event. "I just like the conditions, even though they are different from last year. I think I adjusted very well. Right from the start I was really playing my best tennis in the first match and I continued doing that. Hopefully I will not derail myself and will keep going in the same direction."

Djokovic was particulaly dominant off his forehand wing against Musetti, firing eight winners in a 6-0, 6-3 victory. He received a forehand Shot Quality grade of 9.2 out of 10 for the match. (Learn more about Shot Quality.)

Stefanos Tsitsipas has set up a blockbuster semi-final showdown with Novak Djokovic in Paris after dismissing American Tommy Paul Friday night to capture his 60th match win of the year.

The fifth-seeded Greek, who still has an outside shot at finishing the year No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, saved all seven break points he faced in the 6-2, 6-4 win while converting all three break opportunities that came his way.

“It was a very good match,” Tsitsipas said. “I was able to get ahead in some of his service games, which gave me good energy. I wish I could have avoided some of the situations where I had to save break points, but I dealt with those situations very professionally and I was able to hold serve. My forehand is my confidence shot and has allowed me to get into the corners to open up the court. It’s a weapon of mine on these courts.”

The 2021 and '22 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters champion is attempting to win multiple ATP Masters 1000 titles in the same season for the first time, but that road runs through Djokovic. The Serbian owns a record 38 titles at this level, and has triumphed in Paris a record six times, including in his two most recent appearances in 2019 and 2021. Djokovic has also beaten Tsitsipas seven straight times and boasts an overall 8-2 lead in their ATP Head2Head series.

Asked how he would snap his losing streak to Djokovic, Tsitsipas said that he would fight the urge to overplay against the man who spent a record 373 weeks as World No. 1 during his career. “I need to show the same consistency. I have weapons that I can use. But in the past I feel I have used too much spin or power. It’s important that I stay at a medium level and not overdo it. It will be a physical match and I will need to move well.”

#NextGenATP Italian Jannik Sinner broke new ground in 2019 when he triumphed on home soil at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

The then-18-year-old, who sat No. 95 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, defeated Alex de Minaur in the championship match to give Italy its first home champion at the 21-and-under event.

Next week, Francesco Passaro will aim to replicate his countryman and soar to success on debut at the Allianz Cloud, with Sinner’s victory providing him with belief and motivation.

“I watched on TV last year and three years ago when Jannik won,” Passaro told ATPTour.com. “I think for me the event is a big opportunity because it is in Italy and it is going be of the best under-21 players in the world. It is a very big goal. This year I have grown up a lot. I am now more about myself. The Italian crowd. The energy of the stadium and the atmosphere is [going to be] very, very nice.”

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Holger Rune may have had a busy 2022 season developing his game on court, but that hasn’t stopped the Dane from also finding time to work on a slightly different set of skills.

“I can juggle three balls, for sure. With four, it’s rusty, but I’m trying,” Rune, whose coach Lars Christensen used to work as a circus artist, recently told ATPTour.com. “It’s nice, it’s fun… He (Christensen) showed me [how to do a] handstand, but it takes a lot of work. I can do it against a wall, but it’s very tough to do.”

The 19-year-old Dane believes that Christensen’s background brings a unique perspective to his team as he looks to finish his stellar year in style at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

“He’s told me a little bit [about the circus] and I’ve seen a few videos of it,” said Rune, who has worked with Christensen since childhood. “It’s obviously another kind of thing to tennis, but he’s taught me a few tricks… It’s good, because he has an understanding of all the fitness also, because he did a lot of work to be able to do what he did.

“Obviously, all the things with the balls help. The coordination, and he also has some good drills on the court that maybe other coaches wouldn’t have because he has been in that business. For me, it is nice to have a guy not only with a tennis background, but a different background.”

Dutchman Wesley Koolhof had two reasons to celebrate at the Rolex Paris Masters Friday after teaming with Neal Skupski to reach the semi-finals with a victory that guarantees his rise to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings on Monday.

Koolhof and Skupski cruised to a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop to move to within two victories of their seventh title of the season.

“It's a dream to become World No. 1 individual,” Koolhof said. “But we still have a semi-final, hopefully a final to play here, we still have Turin. There's still a lot to play for.

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

Novak Djokovic gave #NextGenATP Italian Lorenzo Musetti a rude welcome to his first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final as the Serbian eased to victory on Friday at the Rolex Paris Masters. In a 6-0, 6-3 win, Djokovic did not allow the 20-year-old a game point in the first seven games, then quickly overturned a break deficit to run away with the second set and the match.

Seeking his seventh Paris crown, the defending champion extended his dual win streaks to 12 matches both overall in Bercy, where he won titles in his past two appearances in 2019 and 2021. With victory in what was his 90th Masters quarter-final, Djokovic advanced to his 74th semi-final at the prestigious level and now awaits the winner of the day's final match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Tommy Paul. That mark stands at second-most all-time, behind Nadal's 76.

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Musetti was unable to follow up the biggest win of his career, against World No. 4 Casper Ruud on Thursday, with another upset against Djokovic. Despite the defeat, the Italian has enjoyed a strong final stretch this season, winning his first hard-court title last month in Naples and winning nine of his past 12 matches. 

After falling to 0-3 in his ATPHead2Head against Djokovic, he will next turn his attention to the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals, set for 8-12 November in Milan.

Carlos Alcaraz's run at the Rolex Paris Masters came to a sudden end on Friday as an abdominal problem forced him to retire late in his quarter-final match against Holger Rune. He dropped a 6-3 opening set to the Dane and began to feel the issue at the end of the second set, ultimately retiring while trailing 1/3 in the tie-break.

"At the end of the set, it was wrong," he said of the abdominal issue. "It was getting wrong and I preferred to retire and see it, and take care [of] it."

Despite the unfortunate end to the entertaining contest — a rematch of the pair's meeting at the 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals — Alcaraz is hopeful of a fast and full recovery before his debut at the Nitto ATP Finals, which begins 13 November. If he can maintain his position as World No. 1 in Turin, the 19-year-old will become the youngest year-end No. 1 in the history of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

"I have the Nitto [ATP] Finals," he said, when asked if he was looking forward to the end of a gruelling season in which he's played 70 matches, winning 57. "I have some tests on how it's going to be before Turin. But right now I'm focused to try to get better in the abdominal and trying to be at 100 per cent in Turin."

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Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara on Friday became the seventh doubles team to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals. One place remains at the season finale, to be played from 13-20 November in Turin.

It has been a standout season for the British-Finnish team, which will make its debut at the year-end championships. Glasspool and Heliovaara claimed the title at the ATP 500 event in Hamburg and showed great consistency throughout the season, their second together.

Glasspool and Heliovaara advanced to ATP Tour finals on three different surfaces in 2022, reaching the championship match in Montpellier (hard), Dallas (hard), Queen’s Club (grass), Umag (clay), Metz (hard) and Stockholm (hard). The pair also enjoyed success at the Grand Slams, reaching the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and the US Open.

Glasspool and Heliovaara join Wesley Koolhof/Neal Skupski, Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury, Marcelo Arevalo/Jean-Julien Rojer, Nikola Mektic/Mate Pavic, Marcel/Granollers/Horacio Zeballos and Thanasi Kokkinakis/Nick Kyrgios in Turin. 

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on 15 January 2022.

Holger Rune has big dreams in tennis. The #NextGenATP Danish star has no problem saying he believes he can compete with everyone on the ATP Tour and that one day, he wants to be World No. 1.

According to Holger’s mother, Aneke Rune, he is not just saying that for the sake of it.

“As Holger says, a lot of guys say I want to be No. 1, but you can see they don’t mean it. He says you can see it in their eyes. For Holger it’s important as well [that] his coach and people involved really want it,” Aneke said. “He feels it immediately if it’s just fake. If some coaches tried to be interested when he was younger, he was like, ‘But he doesn’t mean it’.

“He’s very serious, and still now when he says he wants to improve and wants to do these things, this is what he really means. It’s not like [he is just saying] ‘I want to be a rockstar’. He wants it.”

Holger Rune advanced to his maiden ATP Masters 1000 semi-final on Friday at the Rolex Paris Masters after Carlos Alcaraz was forced to retire deep into the pair’s quarter-final clash.

After charging to the opening set, Rune held firm to force a tie-break as World No. 1 Alcaraz stepped up his level in the second. Having had treatment on an abdominal muscle at 6-5, however, Alcaraz was forced to retire with Rune leading 3/1 in the second-set tie-break at 6-3, 6-6 .

“I thought it was a great match. [It's] unlucky for him,” said Rune. “I think we both played very well and I was super focused. It was an amazing crowd, amazing tennis, so I’m super pleased with how I handled everything today.”

Prior to Alcaraz’s injury, Stockholm champion Rune had given another demonstration of the recent strides he has made with his game. He rode a fast start to claim the opening set in his first match against fellow 19-year-old Alcaraz since the Spaniard prevailed in straight sets at the 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals. When Alcaraz raised his level in a keenly fought second, Rune fended off two break points at 3-4 en route to the tie-break.

“Carlos is, if not the best, one of the best return players in the world,” said Rune. “Of course, he is No. 1, so he is obviously the best in the world right now, but I’m super happy with how I handled all the things under pressure and how I handled also my return game. I tried to play as aggressive as possible. Sometimes I missed a few shots but it was all worth it because at the end I was very good at important moments."

#NextGenATP youngster Roman Andres Burruchaga comes from a family that holds a piece of Argentine sports history.

Burruchaga’s father, Jorge, scored the game-winning goal in the 1986 World Cup Final, sealing an Argentina 3-2 victory over West Germany. 36 years later, fans still awe over the memorable moment.

“In Argentina, he’s a very famous person,” Roman said of his father. “They love him a lot because of that goal, I think the most important goal in the history of Argentina.”

After retiring from professional football, Jorge spent time as a coach and served as general manager of Argentina’s national team during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Felix Auger-Aliassime added another dominant win to his remarkable winning streak on the indoor hard courts of Europe on Friday at the Rolex Paris Masters, where he raced to a 6-1, 6-4 quarter-final win against Frances Tiafoe.

The eighth seed was clinical behind serve and sharp on return to down Tiafoe and seal his 16th consecutive tour-level win. He struck 26 winners to Tiafoe’s 14 and won 86 per cent (31/36) of points behind his first delivery to clinch a Tour-leading 27th indoor win in 2022.

“Of course a few times the luck was on my side, but I feel like also I played a great match,” said Auger-Aliassime after his win. “We’ve played a few times. In New York [in 2021] it was tight sets, we played in Barcelona this year also, two not easy sets. To come out and play the way I did in the first set, 6-1, it was great.

“Of course, I had match points at 5-3… [He] tried everything and tried many different ways to stay in the match. He did for one more game, but I’m happy that I was able to be clutch in those moments. Serving for the match and [I] stayed cool and played great points when I needed to.”

Auger-Aliassime cruised to the first set as Tiafoe, playing in just his second Masters 1000 quarter-final, struggled to find his best level. The Canadian found rhythm behind his heavy forehand and dropped just two points behind serve in the opening set, and he made it nine of the first 11 games won with an early break in the second.

One year ago, Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune met in the group stage of the 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan. Since then, both 19-year-olds have rocketed up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Alcaraz rising to World No. 1 and Rune reaching a career high of No. 18.

The future has arrived, and fans at the Rolex Paris Masters will see it first-hand on Friday as Alcaraz and Rune square off for a second time in the quarter-finals. 

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The unseeded Rune — a finalist in each of his past three events, including a run to his second career title in Stockholm — has had the more challenging path to the final eight. He edged Stan Wawrinka in a third-set tie-break in the first round before impressive straight-sets wins against 10th seed Hubert Hurkacz and seventh seed Andrey Rublev. The Dane has won 16 of his past 18 matches, including wins against Jannik Sinner and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Alcaraz has yet to drop a set in Paris as he's rounded into form with wins against Yoshihito Nishioka and Grigor Dimitrov. 

Three Nitto ATP Finals doubles contenders pushed their claims at the Rolex Paris Masters Thursday, but Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer, who have already booked their spot in Turin, suffered an opening-round loss in Bercy.

Third seeds Arevalo and Rojer won the first set against Matthew Ebden and Jamie Murray but slipped to a 3-6, 6-3, 10-5 defeat as Murray rallied to claim his 500th career match win.

After saving two match points, seventh seeds Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara, who are next in line to qualify for Turin, converted their fourth match point in a narrow 6-3, 6-7(5), 15-13 victory over Daniel Evans and John Peers. Glasspool and Heliovaara, who are sixth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, will face Ebden and Murray in the quarter-finals Friday.

Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek, seventh in the Race, extended their winning streak to nine by ousting German pair Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 6-3, 7-6(5). Dodig and Krajicek won their previous two tournaments in Naples and Basel.

The Croatian-American duo will next meet top seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the quarter-finals, a rematch from the Roland Garros quarter-final encounter, which Dodig and Krajicek won en route to a runner-up finish.

Jamie Murray walked off Court 2 on Thursday happy to be in the quarter-finals of the Rolex Paris Masters with partner Matthew Ebden. What he did not know is that their triumph against third seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer marked his 500th tour-level win.

“It’s cool. I wasn’t aware of that at all, actually, that I was close to getting there. But it’s a cool thing, a nice milestone to have in your career,” Murray told ATPTour.com. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve been winning that much this year, so a nice way to finish the year and give a nice motivation for next season and try to get to 600 at some point.”

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Murray became just the second active doubles player to reach the 500-wins mark, joining Brazilian Marcelo Melo (590-375). It is another big achievement for the Scot, who has climbed to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings and lifted 27 tour-level trophies.

“The thing with tennis is it’s so constant and you’re always thinking about the next event or the next match or the next practice. You’re kind of always looking to the future, you’re not always in the present or taking time to take stock of what you’ve done in your career,” Murray said. “I’ve obviously had a really good career to this point. Always want to do better and strive for more, but if you’d told me as a kid that I’d win 500 matches on the ATP Tour, I probably would have been like, ‘Yes please, I’ll take that!’ It’s motivating to go for more and try to keep working hard, try to get more success, be in the winners’ circle as often as you can.

After controlling the early action against home favourite Corentin Moutet on Thursday, Stefanos Tsitsipas survived a tense finish to advance the quarter-finals at the Rolex Paris Masters.

With his 6-3, 7-6(3) victory, Tsitsipas advances to his 14th quarter-final of the season and keeps alive his hopes of finishing the year atop the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. He has moved up two places this week to No. 3 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, and could pass Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz with deep runs in both Paris and Turin.

"I'm happy because I knew I had to not just deal with a player today but also with the crowd," Tsitsipas said after battling Moutet and the French crowd. "It's not something that I really think about when I play, but it's kind of present and it's there. It worked out really well for me towards the end. I was very solid and consistent, knowing that I can really generate more opportunities from my serve.

"I was laser-focused on every single one of the points," he continiued. "I played some good shots deep and short, and it was a very good ending."

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Novak Djokovic avenged his 2018 championship match defeat to Karen Khachanov in style on Thursday at the Rolex Paris Masters, where the Serbian delivered a commanding performance for a 6-4, 6-1 third-round victory.

With the win, Djokovic extended his winning streak in tour-level matches to 11. It was also an 11th straight victory for the Serbian at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris, where he has not lost since he fell to Khachanov in the 2018 final.

Just an artist and his canvas ?@DjokerNole #RolexParisMasters pic.twitter.com/i0pXbco6wY

The sixth-seeded Djokovic appeared in a confident mood after his opening win against Maxime Cressy but he was initially pegged back by Khachanov, who recovered an early 0-3 deficit to draw level in the opening set. The World No. 19 had little joy against the free-flowing Djokovic from that point on, however, as the Serbian converted four of eight break points and struck 17 winners to wrap an 87-minute win.

In quintessential Djokovic fashion, the Serbian’s defence proved decisive for nullifying Khachanov’s powerful groundstrokes. According to Tennis Data Innovation’s INSIGHTS Steal Scores for the match, the 90-time tour-level finalist found a way to win 50 per cent of points when he was defending, well above the ATP Tour average of 34 per cent.