Just as he had done all week, Carlos Alcaraz dominated in Milan to beat Sebastian Korda of the United States and win the Next Gen ATP Finals on Saturday, capping a brilliant season for the Spanish teenager.
The top-seeded Alcaraz seemed to take a while to find his proper rhythm and had to save a number of break points in his first two service games. But once the 18-year-old was in his stride there was no turning back as he saw off Korda 4-3 (5), 4-2, 4-2 in 82 minutes.
Alcaraz had seen two championship points saved by Korda in the fifth game of the third set but that only delayed the inevitable as he won on his third, with a smash at the net.
The victory made Alcaraz the youngest player to earn 32 tour-level wins in a season since Andrei Medvedev went 32-11 in 1992 when he was 18.
Alcaraz has moved more than 100 places up the rankings this season to a career-high No. 32 and reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
Both Korda and Alcaraz had won all four of their matches in the tournament for the top 21-and-under players on the ATP Tour. Alcaraz had only dropped one set all week – in the third group game, after he had already secured a semifinal spot.
The ATP Finals will also be in Italy, in Turin next week.
There are different rules at the Next Gen tournament, including on-court coaching, no-Ad scoring, medical timeout limits, and Hawk-Eye making all the line calls.
The most drastic change is the shorter first-to-four set, with a tiebreaker at 3-3.