Carlos Alcaraz is already in Milan like the rest of the tennis players who will participate from Tuesday to Saturday in the fourth edition of the ‘Next Gen’ Finals.
Alcaraz, 18, experimenting with a series of rules that make the tournament reserved for the best under-21s in the world the most attractive on the calendar.
The matches are the best of five sets, but the sleeves are four games. Similarly, there is no advantage to the deuce and the gold point is applied. The fans have freedom of movement during the match. The ‘hawk’s eye’ replaces the linesmen. A clock controls the time that is used in the service. There is instant replay and the professionals have a towel rack in the corners of the track to put down towels.
The pandemic has accelerated the introduction of some of these innovations to the circuit, given the place to deposit the towel, due to the impossibility of being touched by the ball boys, or the absence of referees outside the chair umpire.
What’s new?
To these rules of action during the tournament are added others for the 2021 edition: The warm-up goes from 4 minutes to 1; Coaches will be able to give instructions from the court without using headphones as in the past; The realization of placing cameras on the network to view images that are not usually seen; You can only request medical assistance once; and a maximum of three minutes to go to the bathroom.
Alcaraz will be the third Spanish tennis player to participate in the event. Jaume Munar was present at the 2018 edition and reached the semifinals. The Majorcan lost with Alex de Miaur and will also yield the match for third and fourth place with Andrey Rublev.
Alexander Davidovich played in 2019, staying in the group stage. It should be remembered that the last campaign the Youth Masters was not held as a result of the pandemic.
Carlos, according to the draw, is in group A along with Brandon Nakashima, Juan Manuel Cerndolo and Holger Rune. In B are Sebastian Korda, Lorenzo Musetti, Sebastin Bez and Hugo Gaston.
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