My Unforgettable 3 Days At The Nitto ATP Finals In Turin

Hey, so I've just arrived in the beautiful city of Turin, Italy for the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals. I'm here for three days and got lots of fun planned, so I'm going to take you guys behind the scenes at the tournament, show you some of the action. We're also going to get on court with Neil Skupski, which I'm really excited about, and I'll show you a little bit of the city as well. Let's go. I always like to give context about how these trips come about because you guys often ask in the comments. This one was through the brand, it's a deodorant brand called Shure, and they invited me on this trip on the back of helping them to promote a competition on Instagram where they were giving away two tickets to the ATP World Tour Finals along with flights and accommodation and more. So I did that. We got two fortunate winners and I've just met them both. They're actually tennis coaches, so they're going to have a fantastic time on this trip with me. And yeah, like I say, they have the opportunity to get on court with Neil Skupski this afternoon, so I'm just heading back to the hotel now to grab some breakfast before we head to the tournament. As I said, I'm here for three days, which includes the final, so stay tuned to hear my breakdown of how it goes. Our hotel was about a six-minute taxi from the venue, but we decided to walk pretty much every day as the weather was beautiful. It was only 30 minutes and it was a good chance for us to see a bit more of Turin. When we arrived at the venue, we could see that the grounds were vast and there was plenty of things to do in between watching the tennis. There was a touch tennis zone outside alongside a fan village, which had shops, food and other activations. We were fortunate enough to have hospitality tickets, which alongside having decent seats on the tennis court, we also had access to free food and drinks throughout the day, which was a bonus. But to be honest, I was there for the tennis, so I spent pretty much all of the time on court. So just arrived at the venue, the Palla Alpi Tour. This is Italy's biggest sporting venue and it's incredible. As you can see, I've got the court behind me. We've actually got Al Kharraz practicing on court. Now, I've been to the O2 for the NITO ATP Finals a couple of times and it's an epic atmosphere there, so I'm looking forward to seeing what this is going to be like. The first match we watched was in the final round of the group stage of the doubles. We watched Nils Gutske and Wesley Kulhoff take on Bo Pana and Evdun for a space in the semifinals. The level was extremely high, as you can imagine. I love watching pro doubles as there are so many strategies in play. I love watching the signalling, the variety of court positions from point to point and the sheer reaction speed of the net players. Unfortunately, Neil and Wesley weren't able to win today, but they've had an immense year with taking the Wimbledon title being the highlight. After this match, we were due to get on court with Nils Gutske as he's a sure ambassador, but of course he had lots of cooling down and media responsibilities to do before we could do that, which meant we had around 15 minutes to watch the start of Medvedev versus Alcaraz. Although we didn't get to see much of it, we got a real feel for the electric atmosphere that the Italians created. It was incredible. The size of the venue was perfect, in my opinion, much smaller than the O2, giving you a much more intimate feel, but still creating a show-like atmosphere. So I'm here with Chris and Kyle and we're just about to have a hit on the practice court, but we'll never guess who's behind us. We're kind of hoping the crowd goes after Novak has finished because we're going to be a bit tight, aren't we boys? Let's do it. Strain, end of session, maybe time for us to play. Now I think Goran's going to get another racket. Watching Novak practicing in the flesh is always incredible. I've seen him a few times before. One thing that I always notice is how particular he is with the type of ball that he's receiving in his practice. He was clearly asking his hitting partner to hit the ball in a certain way as he wanted to practice playing against a certain type of shot. Here you can see him asking his hitting partner to hit the ball lower than he was, which I can only imagine was because he thought he was going to be playing against Medvedev, who hits the ball super flat and super low. In fact, there was a big television screen above the practice court and in between points, Novak was watching Medvedev versus Alcaraz, scouting his next opponents. He's watching Alcaraz and Medvedev. Yeah, do it. After kicking Novak off court, we finally managed to get on court with Neil. Chris and Carl were down the other end of the court hitting balls with Neil while I got the chance to chat with him. How was the surface? Is it quick or? Very quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You enjoy a slower court? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do the practice courts play like the show court? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Neil was possibly one of the nicest pro tennis players I've ever met. Super humble, super easy to talk to and brought brilliant energy to the court for this hitting session. As I can only imagine that after losing that match, this was probably the last thing he wanted to do. I actually messaged Neil after the session, thanking him for his time and his energy on court and he actually said that the session itself actually helped him to get over the loss. So that was really nice to hear. So after an epic session on court with Neil Skupski, we're back in the arena to watch Zverev versus Zhublev. Now, although this is unfortunately a dead rubber, there's still €390,000 on the line for these guys, so it's going to be a good match. This match was ferocious. I really love watching both of these players play as they play with such intensity. Zhublev in particular puts everything into every single shot, but the thing that separated the two of them this match was the quality and the depth of their ground strokes. Zhublev hit the ball with so much effort. He was getting an incredible amount of topspin on his forehands, but the problem with this was they were dropping a little bit too short, sitting up nicely for Zverev to dictate the point. I almost felt that if Zhublev was able to flatten out his forehand just a little bit, it would allow him to hit that ball deeper and actually require less effort to do so. This would create more of a penetrating forehand and probably give Zverev a little bit more trouble, but this was an incredible match to finish our first day. On day two, I had a chance to see the sights in Turin. We actually went on a walking tour of the city so that we could see more of the city and its history. This, if you're going to Turin, is definitely recommended. As I mentioned earlier, the NITO ATP finals is actually set in Turin for the next two years, so you've got a chance to go in 2024 and 2025. After a long day of sightseeing, we went to a pub to watch the semi-final between Djokovic and Alcaraz. And what for me was amazing to see was how many people were passionate about watching tennis. In the UK, you'd get this amount of passion for a football or a rugby match, but if the tennis was showing, I'm pretty sure people would be more focused on drinking their beers. However, this pub, the atmosphere was electric. And just remember, these two players are not Italian, yet the Italians were going crazy for it. The pub was full and there were people queuing outside the windows trying to watch the TV. I absolutely love this. Anyway, this was another incredible match, in particular from Novak Djokovic. He played incredibly well and won convincingly against Alcaraz, who was unable to play his best tennis. So it's Sunday, day three, finals day. And as you saw yesterday, we had a nice day of sightseeing. We did a walking tour, which I would thoroughly recommend. In the evening, we headed to the pub as the tennis was showing and we didn't want to miss Alcaraz versus Djokovic. Now, before the tournament started, I had Janik and Novak down to reach the final. And to be honest, I had Janik down to win. Since seeing Djokovic's performance in the semifinal against Alcaraz, he was so clinical. I honestly can't see anybody in the world beating him right now. But Janik has got the home crowd. They're a brilliant crowd as well. The atmosphere is electric and it's going to be even more so in the final against Djokovic, because as we know, Djokovic likes to, you know, G up the crowd, put them against him. And yeah, it's going to be epic. So really, really excited for that. I'm just having a little morning stroll before heading to the tournament venue. So I'll see you in there. So on the final day, we headed straight back into the tournament venue. And when we got there, Janik Sinner was practicing on the show court. Janik is one of my favourite players to watch. And in my honest opinion, I think he and Carlos are going to be the next Roger and Rafa with their rivalry over the next few years. Well, at least after Djokovic is gone. So the first match of finals day was the doubles between British player Joe Salisbury, who you might have seen me interviewing in my video last week, partnered with Rajeev Ram, taking on Marcel Granolas and Horatio I hope I pronounced that properly. This was another incredible doubles match demonstrating tons of skills. Again, I love seeing how proactive the net players were never standing still and playing such smart doubles. One thing that struck me was the relationship between Salisbury and Ram. These guys have played together for five years, as have their opponents. But you could tell by the way they moved around the court that they were perfectly in sync and knew exactly what their partner was doing at all times. The second thing that impressed me, not just in this match, but all of the matches I've seen of Joe Salisbury, is he never misses an overhead. If you ever have the pleasure of playing against him, avoid lobs. Anyway, these two managed to go on and win the match after an epic battle. And it was a pretty emotional finish. They made a great post-match speech and brought their team onto the court for the finishing photos. So the final match of my trip, Janik Sinha, the Italian, playing in front of his home crowd against Novak Djokovic, possibly the greatest tennis player of all time. I say possibly as I'm a massive Roger and Rafa fan. However, I can't deny that I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Novak Djokovic. Now, as I said before, I kind of expected this final and I was expecting Janik to go and win the tournament right at the start. However, after their epic battle in the group stages, I soon realised that it was going to be incredibly tough for Janik to beat Novak twice in the same event. And then after seeing the semi-final that Novak played against Alcaraz, he honestly looks like nobody can beat him at the moment. Now, straight away in this match, Novak got off to a brilliant start. Janik was unable to touch his serving games. Every single serving game that Djokovic had lasted two to three minutes. However, Janik's serving games went on for much longer. This is normally a good indication of who is going to win the first set. As Novak's serves were so precise and so effective that Sinha just didn't get any rhythm on his returning games. However, Novak being one of the best returners of all time was able to neutralise Janik's serve and get into the rally, putting much more pressure on Janik, forcing him to go for shots that he might not go for otherwise. This display of incredible serving continued throughout the first set and a half. Novak took the first set 6-3 and then went 4-2 up. The Italian crowd were incredible throughout the whole match, but at this point in the second set, things really heated up as Janik had a chance to break Novak back. There were tons of juices in a really long game and because the Italian sensed a little bit of hope for Janik, they started to increase their support for him. And at some stages, too much. It was slightly unfair on Novak. In between points and even in between first and second serves, they were chanting for Janik. Now, in most occasions, this is not on and it would probably affect the players on court. However, Novak is so good in these situations. In fact, I think he loves it. He often G's up the crowd and puts them against him as that atmosphere pushes him to focus more and to play more intensely. And this is exactly what it did. Novak pushed through that game and went on to win the second set 6-3. In my honest opinion, the match was won within serving and returning. Novak's first serve points won was at 91%, which is huge. He won 29 out of 32 points on his first serve. I honestly think that if Janik was able to neutralize that first serve and make more first serve returns in play, he would have really challenged Novak as he did in the group stages. If I was Janik and I was struggling to return Novak's serves as he was, I would have actually mixed up my return position a little bit more, maybe stepped in slightly closer to close off those angles. Now, that's easier said than done as Novak's hitting the serve pretty big and that of course would limit Janik's time. However, because he was a couple of meters back behind the baseline, it opened up much more space for Novak to hit those aces and unreturnable first serves. Sometimes the simple act of changing up your court position can actually force your opponent to serve to a certain part of the court that they're not so good at. Now, Novak was pretty good at hitting both parts, but mixing things up could have given him a change of scenery. So, that was a wrap for Turin for me. Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about the trip as, like I say, it's definitely one you should try to go to if you have the opportunity. Thanks as always for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, consider subscribing to the channel and hit that thumbs up button as it goes a long way to getting my videos to reach more people. Thanks as always. I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Take care.