The 2019 ATP Tennis season gets underway in the early hours of Monday morning at the and it looks set to be another exciting and enthralling season with the ongoing battle between the top veterans and top NextGen stars being one of the many highlights this season. At the age of 31 world number one Djokovic falls in to the veteran’s group now but judging by last seasons heroics when he fought his way back from injury to win Wimbledon and the US Open and just nicked the world number one spot from an injured Nadal, it’s unlikely age is going to be a barrier to him enjoying further success this season.
World number two Nadal is now aged 32 and at the half way stage last season he was riding high as world number after dominating the clay season again that culminated in him winning an unprecedented eleventh French Open title. He also reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon and just lost out on a coveted final spot after another epic five settle battle against Djokovic, who just edged it 10-8 in the fifth set. Nadal never really recovered from this tough loss and he missed the end of the 2018 season, including the year-end finals, due to injury and the big question for this season is, will he be fit enough to play a full season, or will he miss the majority of the first quarter of the season and focus on dominating the European clay court swing and winning a record twelfth French Open?
There’s been no word or sign that world number three and arguably the best player of all time Roger Federer aged 37 is ready to hang is racket up, which is a remarkable achievement considering the quality of opposition he has continued to face throughout his career. He still holds the record for the total number of Grand Slams won at twenty and after a period of four seasons from 2012 to 2016 without winning one and being stuck on 18, he miraculously stormed back over the last two seasons and won another two Slams, both at the Australian Open where he’s the defending champion again. Like the other top veteran players on the ATP Tour like Djokovic, Nadal, Murray and Wawrinka the main challenge for Federer will be managing his body and any new or existing injuries over a long and gruelling season.
The top ten in general is dominated by veterans of the ATP Tour with eight players aged 28 or older and the two other players are NextGen stars Sascha Zverev aged 21 who is world number four and world number eight Dominic Thiem aged 25. Both players continue to improve and have started winning Masters Series tournaments but are yet to break the dominance of the big four at the Grand Slams. This is next big step both players need to make if they are going to be the future stars of the men’s game, but in addition to the big four they will also have to contend with some of the other top ten veterans like fifth seed Del Potro and seventh seed Cilic, who have both won and regularly challenge for the Grand Slams.
There are more NexGen stars in the top twenty who are knocking on the top ten door like Russian Khachanov aged 22 who is ranked eleven in the world, Croatian Coric who is also aged 22 and ranked thirteenth in the world, British number one Kyle Edmunds aged 23 who is ranked fourteenth in the world, Greece’s new star Stefanos Tsitsipas who had a stellar 2018 season that lifted him to fifteenth in the world and last but not least another Russian Medvedev aged 22 who is ranked sixteenth in the world after a breakthrough 2018 season. This group of NextGen stars will also be aiming to improve on their current rankings by adding more ATP 250 and 500 tournament wins to their CV’s and continuing to challenge for the Masters 1000 Series and Grand Slams and winning one of either two would be a major achievement.
There’s also a host of other veterans and NextGen stars who are still ranked in the top-50 who will be looking to bounce back this season after either struggling with injury and/or form in 2018. The likes of Murray, Wawrinka, Dimitrov, Goffin, Raonic, Carreno-Busta, Chung, Shapavalov, Pouille and Kyrgios all had injury ravaged and/or disappointing 2018 seasons by their high standards and will be aiming to bounce back in 2019 and hopefully win some silverware and be challenging for the big tournaments again.
Murray, Wawrinka, Dimitrov, Goffin, Raonic or Pouille all have the talent and experience to challenge for any of the Masters 1000 Series and Slams but staying fit and injury free will play a big part in this and hopefully they will all have better fortunes in 2019 as it only adds to the quality and competitiveness to the ATP Tour, especially at the bigger tournaments.
From a season-long and/or ante-post betting perspective there’s no markets or bets that appeal, but if you refer to next week’s ATP tournament preview and analysis, I may have some outright tournament and/or match betting selections. If you are following all my tennis betting selections in 2019 please remember I advise a 50 point betting bank to a level one point stake and sometimes you may experience long losing runs for the outright tournament betting selections as I go for outsiders, but hopefully weekly winnings on the match betting selections will minimise any losses you may incur.
Selections: None
