'At times, I couldn’t have played better': With ATP Finals win, Jannik Sinner finished a No. 1 season worthy of the Big 3

Sunday’s opener in Turin can serve as a litmus test for what we think is the most important factor coming into a match. Is it momentum? Ranking? Head to head? Experience at a certain tournament? Ruud has a slight edge in three of those categories, but Auger-Aliassime is dominant in the fourth.

Ruud is seeded third; FAA is fifth. That’s a result of Ruud’s superior performances at the events that mattered most in 2022. He was runner-up at Roland Garros and the US Open, while FAA was just 7-4 at the Slams and lost in the first round at Indian Wells, Miami, and Wimbledon. Ruud leads their head-to-head 2-1, and he beat Auger-Aliassime badly in their only meeting of 2022, 6-1, 6-2 on Felix’s home courts in Montreal. Ruud also played the ATP Finals last year and made the semifinals. FAA will be making his debut on Sunday.

All of that would lead you to favor Ruud. But as I said, there’s one strong argument in favor of Auger-Aliassime: He has been on fire during the post-US Open indoor season, while Ruud has been ice-cold. FAA pulled out a crucial Laver Cup match over Novak Djokovic to launch Team World to its first victory, then he won three straight tournaments and 16 straight matches in October and November. Ruud, meanwhile, is 2-4 in ATP events since the Open, a run that includes losses to Yoshihito Nishioka, Jaume Munar, and Stan Wawrinka.

Will Auger-Aliassime be ready for more, or will he finally have a letdown? Did Ruud permanently run out of gas at the Open, or will he be determined to give his breakthrough season a proper sendoff? I’m going to say the latter. Ruud has been here, and succeeded here, before.

Winner: Ruud

Casper Ruud defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime in Montreal in 2022

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Rafael Nadal vs. Taylor Fritz

As far as entertainment value per point, Nadal vs. Fritz may be the matchup of the year on the ATP. Their two contests were competitive, the rallies were long and exciting, and there was a built-in dramatic narrative each time: Would the harder-hitting younger guy find the belief to beat an aging legend? Or would the aging legend use all of his wiles to live to play another day? Each of those storylines proved to be true, once.

They played twice in 2022, in the Indian Wells final and the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Both times, Fritz took an early lead—he won the first set in Indian Wells 6-3, and he led by two sets to one at Wimbledon. Both times, Nadal made a frenetic and unlikely comeback while injured. He came up short at Indian Wells playing with a cracked rib, falling 7-6 in the second set. But at Wimbledon, where he had a torn ab muscle, he made it all the way back, winning 7-6 in the fifth.

Taylor Fritz defeated Rafael Nadal to win the 2022 Indian Wells title

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The results of those matches were different, but the dynamic was the same: Fritz pounded his serve and ground strokes into the corners, and Nadal ran everything down and tried his best to compensate for his injuries and find different ways to win points from non-offensive positions. On an indoor court in Turin, it seems likely that this dynamic will play out yet again—hopefully with no Rafa injury involved.

Who’s more likely to win the rubber match between the two? Fritz didn’t exactly light things up down the stretch of the 2022 season, when he was trying to qualify for this event. He lost in the second round in Vienna and Bercy, and is only in Turin because No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz pulled out. But he still has a leg up on Rafa in the form department. Nadal has played just one singles match since the Open, and the 36-year-old ran out of steam, in a way we’re not used to seeing, in the third set against Tommy Paul in Bercy. He spent one changeover staring at the court, looking shell-shocked and just letting the sweat pour over him.

Rafa is a well-known miracle worker, but he will need another to bounce back from that defeat so quickly.

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