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Introduction

The typical complications of round-robin tennis typically lead to at this point of the season-ending championships viewers are commonly puzzled, hastily looking for a computing device and attempting to calculate the mind-boggling permutations of qualification. But tonight’s match between Alexander Zverev and Auger-Aliassime, fortunately, is easy. It’s a straight shootout: the winner sets up a semi-final contest against Alcaraz at this championship finale; the defeated player heads out.

Zverev is the predicted winner for this: the world No 3 is the more experienced competitor, has been the champion at this event previously on two instances and holds the advantage in their personal record six matches to three, winning both the games they've played on an enclosed hard court.

But … this is the surface on which Felix has secured the majority of his titles, he is full of confidence after his compelling comeback against Shelton on recently and he eliminated the German in the US Open early stage in August. Furthermore, the court pace is quicker in Turin than at Flushing Meadows, which provides an additional advantage in Auger-Aliassime's favour.

If the German player is reserved, similar to his performance against the Italian, and the Canadian presses the German with his effective service game and fearless play, it might very well be the North American athlete – the earlier standout who was earlier slated before the younger champions to replace the tennis icons – who obtains the uncertain distinction of playing against the top-ranked player on Saturday.

The match starts: at about 8.30pm local time, 19:30 Greenwich Mean Time.