The finale of the men’s tennis season gets underway in London on November 4th when the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals take place at the O2 Arena. The tournament, contested by the top eight (uninjured) singles players in the ATP rankings, offers a bumper purse of $1.92m to the champion. The World Tour Finals is fast becoming one of the showpiece events of the year and attracts over 260,000 fans, making it the most popular indoor tennis event on the calendar.
Novak Djokovicis the defending World Tour Finals champion and competes in the tournament for the seventh consecutive season. The Serb knows what it takes to triumph at the O2 and last year displayed grit and determination on the hard court surface, beating Roger Federer in a thrilling final 7-6 7-5.
Rafael Nadal has yet to win the World Tour Finals title but he has enjoyed a magnificent season and the ATP betting odds suggest he is heavily fancied to break his duck this year. The Spanish maestro has won his fair share of tournaments in 2013, including four consecutive World Tour Masters 1000 events and two Grand Slam titles, the French Open and the US Open. Nadal was absent from the O2 in 2012 due to injury so expect him to be doubly determined to win next week.
Having waited until this week’s Paris Masters to confirm his qualification, Roger Federer will be looking forward to making his 12th consecutive appearance at the World Tour Finals. The fans’ favourite has won two of his six World Tour Finals titles in London, in 2010 and 2011. It may not have been a vintage year for the Swiss superstar, having failed to contest a Grand Slam final for the first time since 2002, but he will still be well-supported in the ATP betting odds for this event.
With Andy Murray out of action, there will be opportunities for some of the other contenders to progress in the tournament. David Ferrer and Juan Martin del Potro have qualified in the Emirates ATP Race to London and both previous finalists at the World Tour Finals should not be overlooked.
Ferrer was runner up to Roger Federer in 2007 and has enjoyed recent good form on indoor hard courts, reaching the finals of the Stockholm Open and the Valencia Open 500 in October.
Fans of Del Potro who bet online will not need convincing of his abilities. The popular Argentine was runner-up the first time the World Tour Finals were played in London in 2009, losing to Nikolay Davydenko in the final. Del Potro’s hopes will be boosted following his Swiss Indoors triumph last week, when he defeated Federer in the final.
Elsewhere, Czech Tomas Berdych has qualified for the World Tour Finals for the fourth consecutive season and will be one to watch. The hard hitter may be an outsider in the bet online markets but his greatest career achievement came when he reached the Wimbledon final in 2010. He will be hoping that London proves a happy hunting ground once again.
