Zverev takes on debutant Shelton

The 2025 Nitto ATP Finals begins Sunday in Turin, where the ATP Tour's greatest champions will battle it out at the prestigious season finale. Two singles showdowns and a pair of doubles matches open the show on Day 1 in the Inalpi Arena.

Carlos Alcaraz will take on Alex de Minaur in the Jimmy Connors Group, before Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton meet in Sunday's evening finale to begin play in the Bjorn Borg Group.

A doubles matchup pitting defending champions Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz against Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos will open the day's action, with top seeds Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool meeting home favourites Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori to start the night session.

It All Adds Up

[1] Carlos Alcaraz (ESP) vs. [7] Alex de Minaur (AUS)
While Alcaraz enters Turin at No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings, behind Jannik Sinner, he earned the top seed through his first-place position in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin. By the same token, the Spaniard holds the upper hand in the battle for ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF honours. He must reach the final with at least one round-robin win or sweep his round-robin matches to guarantee himself the award for the second time (2022).

"I think doing good in this tournament, winning matches here, it comes together with ending the year as No. 1," Alcaraz said of his twin goals in Turin. "It's kind of the same motivation. They stick together. I think it's going to be a real big and important week."

After a shock opening-round defeat to Cameron Norrie in Paris — a result that opened the door for Sinner to reclaim No. 1 — Alcaraz seeks a return to winning ways against De Minaur, who is making his second consecutive Nitto ATP Finals appearance. On paper, it's a favourable start for the top seed and a nightmare assignment for the Aussie: Alcaraz is a perfect 4-0 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series, with wins this season in Rotterdam and Barcelona.

But De Minaur enters the event with the most hard-court wins of any player this season thanks to his 42-14 record on the surface, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index. His 55 overall wins on the year are also a personal record, beating his previous best of 48.

"Overall I'm very pleased with the year I've had. I think I've shown some really good consistency and I've been able to play some good tennis on this surface," said the Aussie, who is seeking his first Nitto ATP Finals match win in his second Turin appearance.

"Now looking towards the competition ahead, I think we've got a very tough group. We're all very capable of playing some good tennis and making life difficult for each other."

One of the game's great retrievers, De Minaur knows he can't rely solely on his speed and defensive skills to pull off the upset. To have a puncher's chance, the Aussie will need to land the first blow often against the Spanish superstar, who has played just one tour-level match since the start of October. 

[3] Alexander Zverev (GER) vs. [5] Ben Shelton (USA)
Only one man has beaten Zverev since mid-October, and it's a man the German will face later in the group stage: Sinner, the same player who beat Shelton in his most recent match. With the Italian lurking, the Turin opener between two-time Nitto ATP Finals champ Zverev (2018, 2021) and Turin debutant Shelton carries heightened significance for both competitors.

Like Alcaraz vs. De Minaur, the Lexus ATP Head2Head series between Zverev and Shelton stands at 4-0 for the higher-ranked player. Shelton has not won a set in their three meetings this season, one on each of the ATP Tour's three surfaces.

Zverev's confidence will be further boosted by deep runs in his past two tournaments, a runner-up finish in Vienna and a semi-final showing in Paris. Each of those runs included a clutch win via a third-set tie-break, against Jacob Fearnley and Daniil Medvedev.

Shelton reached the Paris quarter-finals in his most recent outing before eventual champ Sinner ended his run. There were concerns the American's season would come to an early end after he retired at the US Open with a left-shoulder injury, but the 23-year-old played three tournaments in October and showed signs of his best tennis. Before his defeat to Sinner in Paris, Shelton clinched his Turin debut with a 7-6(6), 6-3 win against Andrey Rublev, who competed at the Nitto ATP Finals each of the past five years.

Shelton will hope to cap his Turin debut this week with another first: Parallel to the Sinner-Alcaraz battle for World No. 1 in Turin will be the Shelton-Fritz fight for American No. 1, an honour Shelton briefly wrestled from his countryman in 2024. The lefty has never finished a season as the top American in the PIF ATP Rankings.

Doubles Action
The Peter Fleming Group will kick off the doubles action in Turin. Defending champions Tim Puetz and Kevin Krawietz have the honour of opening the 2025 event with their matchup against third seeds Granollers and Zeballos, champions this season at Roland Garros and the US Open.

British top seeds Cash and Glasspool, seeking to add to their Tour-leading seven titles this season (including Wimbledon), meet home favourites Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori. The Italians, who won four titles this year and reached the Australian Open final, are competing in Turin for the second straight year.