Andy Schooler previews Thursday’s action at the Nitto ATP Finals when four players in the Jimmy Connors Group will be battling for two semi-final spots.
Tennis betting tips: ATP Finals
1.5pts under 20.5 games in Carlos Alcaraz v Lorenzo Musetti at 19/20 (BetMGM)
Taylor Fritz v Alex de Minaur (1300 GMT)
All four players in the Jimmy Connors Group still have a chance of reaching the semi-finals, this despite the fact that De Minaur has lost both of his matches thus far.
He now enters this contest knowing he has to win in straight sets to stand any chance of making it into the last four.
Fritz, meanwhile, knows any victory will see him qualify, while a three-set loss might be enough.
The American pushed Carlos Alcaraz all the way on Tuesday and may still be looking back at the break points he had midway through the second set. We'll never know, but it felt at the time that had he taken one, he’d have emerged victorious.
This match appears to be on his racquet. The conditions suit his game and Fritz has targeted aggression as the route to success in Turin.
De Minaur is more of a defensive player – he’ll hope to push Fritz into lengthy rallies, although the American has shown improvement from the baseline over the past 18 months and I doubt the De Minaur is coming through this one with the result he needs.
As I expected at the start of the tournament, he’s been a bit short of the level needed in a field of this quality. He’s now 0-5 in Turin across the last two years, with those matches making up a run of one win in 18 against top-10 players.
That record appeared to weighing heavily on his shoulders after he blew a 5-3 final-set lead against Lorenzo Musetti on Tuesday. Afterwards a dejected De Minaur said: “If I really want to be serious about taking the next step in my career, these matches, I can't lose 'em. I just can't.
“It feels like I've lost a lot of them this year. I mean, more than anything it's getting to a point where mentally it's killing me.”
That doesn’t sound like someone ready to land the upset here, although, as always, I suspect he’ll give it a good go.
If De Minaur is mentally damaged, the worry with backing Fritz, who is just 4/9 to win, is physical.
He’s suffered with knee tendinitis for months and admitted he was “really struggling” with the issue during the third set against Alcaraz. A day off should help but anyone looking to back him here needs to be aware of the danger.
For me, this doesn’t look a great match to bet on with Fritz too short to trust given that injury problem.
If you are determined to have a financial interest in this one, perhaps the way of getting a big price onside is to back De Minaur to win the first set – he’s out if he doesn’t – but for Fritz to show his extra quality by eventually winning. That’s an 11/2 shot.
Carlos Alcaraz v Lorenzo Musetti (1930 GMT)
Looking at qualification scenarios here, Alcaraz will already be into the semis if De Minaur wins the afternoon match. If Fritz wins, he only needs to win a set, although victory clinches top spot in the group and thus avoids Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals. That will certainly be the aim.
Musetti knows a straight-sets win takes him through but a three-set victory will only be enough if De Minaur has won the first match of the day. Hope that’s clear!
Regardless of what’s happened in the afternoon, it’s hard to look beyond an Alcaraz win – the bookies make him a 1/7 chance.
He’s 7-1 up on the head-to-head, albeit most of those have come on clay. On hardcourts, the dominance has actually been greater with two straight-sets wins.
The Spaniard fended off a fine effort from Fritz on Tuesday, adding to victory over De Minaur. I stand by my assessment that Alcaraz isn’t at his best in these indoor conditions but I doubt that will matter in this contest.
Musetti did raise the roof with his win over De Minaur on Tuesday but he should never have been allowed to come back from a calamitous final-set position – he was a point from going down a double break and De Minaur then lost the last four games.
The Italian would have enjoyed the moment in an electric atmosphere in Turin but I suspect that was his takeaway from this tournament.
A three-hour battle will have added to the physical fatigue he’s pushing his body through right now following his late bid to qualify for this event, while it will also have been draining mentally.
Now he has to play arguably the world’s best player, one he’s struggled against in the past. Notably, he’s had fatigue issues in other matches against Alcaraz this season – Monte Carlo and Roland Garros – and has duly lost sets 6-0 (twice) and 6-1 in them.
A look at the details of those previous encounters shows Alcaraz winning 79% of his service games and breaking Musetti’s serve a whopping 41% of the time. Apply the hardcourt filter and those numbers climb to a frightening 94-47.
Fritz was all over the Musetti serve earlier this week and those numbers suggest Alcaraz will have similar success on it.
Therefore, the bet for me here is under 20.5 games.
It’s landed in both previous hardcourt meetings, while Fritz v Musetti earlier this week came in under this line too.
Posted at 0650 GMT on 13/11/25
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