Tsitsipas wins, but is confused

Milan – Stefanos Tsitsipas (right) capped a roller-coaster season by winning the Next Gen ATP Final on Saturday but the rising Greek star conceded he was slightly bemused by the rules of the tournament.

The 20-year-old from Athens came through 2-4, 4-1, 4-3 (7/3), 4-3 (7/3) on his third match point against Australian Alex de Minaur, 19, after one hour and 41 minutes to win his second career title after Stockholm last month.

“To be honest with you, I don’t really know what I liked and what I didn’t like,” said Tsitsipas.

The round-robin tournament for players aged under 21 has a shorter format than other tournaments, playing sets of first to four games, with tie breaks at 3-3.

It is designed to increase the number of pivotal moments in a match, while playing best-of-five sets does not alter the number of games required to win a match (12) from the traditional three-set scoring format.

“The games are very stressful. Obviously there’s no advantage so you need to be twice more concentrated,” said Tsitsipas, who has jumped from 91st at the start of the season to world No 15. “But, I love those rules because I won.”

Players can communicate with their coaches through headsets, with line calls using the HawkEye Live system, backed up by a video review system.

A towel rack was placed at the back of court after Spaniard Fernando Verdasco came under fire for his treatment of a ball boy at last month’s Shenzhen Open.

Tsitsipas – an alternate in last year’s inaugural edition of the tournament which was won by South Korea’s Chung Hyeon – declared he was “not a fan of the towel thing or the headset”, which he smashed in Friday’s semifinal.

“Live Hawk-Eye was exciting ... very, very good. No mistakes. Very accurate. Very responsive ....

“Hopefully it can be the innovation of the game,” added Tsitsipas, who finished runner-up to Rafael Nadal in Barcelona and Toronto.