Jannik Sinner v Taylor Fritz: ATP Finals group-stage tennis – live

Back to this evening’s matters. This will be the fourth meeting between Sinner and Fritz. Sinner has the edge in their head-to-head, leading 2-1, with Fritz’s win coming back in 2021, before the real Jannik Sinner stood up.

“I have to be at my top if I want to win or get close,” Sinner told the ATP website of facing Fritz. “It’s going to be tough, this I know. I know that I will have to raise my level, so hopefully I can do that. I feel like he has improved a lot in the past one and a half, two years. He is serving much better, hitting the ball very, very hard. He’s a great competitor.”

In other tennis news:

As for Daniil Medvedev, having been booed for his racket-smashing antics against Fritz on Sunday, the Russian stuck his fingers in his ears after a much-improved display against Alex de Minaur earlier. “I went into this match blocking the noise, even from myself,” the 2020 champion said after his brilliant 6-2, 6-4 victory over the Australian. “I really didn’t care what was happening on court, I just tried to play, and it was a good feeling.”

The result means Medvedev is back in semi-final contention, while De Minaur will be knocked out with a match to spare on his ATP Finals debut if Sinner v Fritz goes to three sets.

We’ve already had a repeat of this year’s Wimbledon men’s doubles final today – and the result was the same too, with Britain’s Henry Patten and his Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara defeating Australia’s Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson 7-6 (3), 7-5.

Patten and Heliovaara are through to the semi-finals with a match to spare, because Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic have just beaten Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, saving a match point in the second set before winning a match tie-break 10-8, with the late drama warming the crowd up nicely for Sinner v Fritz. They’re already screaming loudly – just wait until Sinner steps on to court…

While we’re waiting: here are the highlights from their US Open final.

Buonasera! And welcome to our coverage of the ATP Finals group match between Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz, which wraps up the action on day three after a transformed Daniil Medvedev defeated Alex de Minaur earlier. Sinner and Fritz both opened with straight-sets victories on Sunday – Sinner against De Minaur and Fritz against a self-combusting Medvedev – so the winner tonight will take pole position in the Ilie Nastase group, with one more set of round-robin matches to come.

What marks this evening’s contest out is that it’s a repeat of September’s US Open final. Sinner surged past the American 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in New York despite having most of the 23,000 spectators against him; this time the Italian will have the best part of 15,000 fans in Turin on his side – not that the world No 1 and winner of seven titles this season needs any extra help. He’s very much the leading man at the first ATP Finals in 23 years not to feature Federer, Nadal or Djokovic, and he’s the strong favourite to win the season-ending event for the first time, especially with an ailing Carlos Alcaraz reportedly ending his practice session after only 10 minutes earlier because of illness.

There’s talk in Turin about whether the Spaniard will be able to face Andrey Rublev in his second match tomorrow – even if he does play, the most likely challenger to Sinner for the title is now Alex Zverev, for my money – but first things first, we’ve got Sinner v Fritz to focus on tonight. The players are due to get going at about 8.30pm local time/7.30pm GMT. And do send me an email with any predictions or predilections; it’s good to have you for company.