Next Gen ATP Finals - Difference in competition in group stage?

Third Edition of Next Gen Finals

The Next Gen ATP Finals are taking place in Milan since 2017. It's a tournament based on the ATP Finals but only containing players 21 and under. Hyeon Chung and Stefanos Tsitsipas won the Next Gen Finals in 2017 resp. 2018. Apart from the age restriction, there are plenty of other peculiarities in Milan.

Every match will be played over best of five sets while each set is first to four. At 3-3, there will be a tiebreak just as at 6-6 on the usual tour. Like in doubles, the No-Ad rule is taking place at the Next Gen Finals. These are the most important rule changes, but there are a few others like towel boxes at each baseline or the concession for attendants to move around at any time. Summarized, the tournament is supposed to be hip and entertaining.

Unbalanced Group A

There will be two groups of four players and Group A contains the #1 seed and betting favorite Alex de Minaur from Australia. After Stefanos Tsitsipas (qualified for ATP Finals), Felix Auger-Aliassime (injury) and Denis Shapovalov all withdrew, there's a pretty big gap between the top seeded Australian, who just reached a new career high #18 after good results in Basel and Paris, and the other players, regarding the rankings. Frances Tiafoe is the only other player inside the top 50, but he's hardly playing top 50 tennis in 2019.

Casper Ruud, Miomir Kecmanovic and Shapovalov replacement Alejandro Davidovich Fokina will try to tackle De Minaur in Group A. While the 20-year-old Australian really grew into an allrounder, especially Ruud still feels way more comfortable on clay courts. Kecmanovic and Davidovich Fokina do have the game for hard courts, but their indoor stats are far from impressive. Kecmanovic has 7 wins and 7 losses to his name on indoor hards. The Serbian just recently lost to Chardy, Struff and Roumane in October. Davidovich Fokina is 4-6 with no relevant wins and even though Ruud won 63% of his matches indoors, most of these matches took place at Challenger or ITF level.

So while I grant Kecmanovic the best chances of troubling De Minaur, I'm not sure about his health as he suffered a minor thigh injury in Paris. Regarding form, matchups and surface, I don't think anyone can stop Alex de Minaur in Group A. He already reached the final in Milan last year. After beating Caruana, Rublev, Fritz and Munar, he lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas in four sets. The latest member of the top 20 is the overwhelming favorite and while I don't regard 2.50 as a good number to win the tournament, I do think there is value on him to win his group at 1.72. The Australian is in the easier group and will only be challenged in the semis and final.

Undecided Group B

Group B is way more balanced and besides #47 Frances Tiafoe, #54 Ugo Humbert and #73 Mikael Ymer, we have Italian Wild Card and future superstar #95 Jannik Sinner in there. Looking at the numbers, it's only Tiafoe who has a negative record on indoor hard courts, sitting at 24-27 over the course of his career. Frenchman Ugo Humbert (63%), young Swede Ymer (70%) and Italian sensation Sinner (74%) all have impressive W/L records on indoor hard courts. It has to be added that the American is the only player who played the majority of his matches at ATP level though.

Tiafoe has already been to Milan last year and got eliminated in the group stage after losing 1-4 3-4 1-4 to clay court specialist Jaume Munar. I'm not sure if he will be 100% motivated this time either as he is nominated for the Davis Cup Finals later in November. Ymer, despite his great indoor record, should be the most attackable player in the group. He doesn't really have big weapons and also dropped a little bit of his great form lately, losing to Stebe and Ruud back to back.

Just like the bookmakers, I think it's hard to come up with a prediction in this group. If I had to choose, I would probably go with Humbert and Sinner to advance. There's no real value for me to pick a group winner though, so I will stick with De Minaur to win Group A. Sinner might be the "longshot" option at 7.00 to win the tournament with the passionate crowd supporting him.