All eyes are on the best players in the world this week at the Nitto ATP Finals. The future is in Turin, too.
An annual tradition at the season finale is that the hitting partners for the players are some of the best rising stars in the sport. The ATP selects one player from the Next Gen Accelerator, one from the College Accelerator within it, and the No. 1-ranked junior player in the world.
This year’s hitting partners are former college standout Andres Martin, 19-year-old Bolivian Juan Carlos Prado Angelo and 18-year-old Norwegian Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, the world’s No. 1 junior.
“It's been a really cool experience. You're surrounded by the top eight guys in the world and even Stefanos [Tsitsipas] and [Grigor] Dimitrov, who are just as good as all these guys, are walking around really casually,” Martin said. “It's really nice, you get a feeling, you see the level. You see what these guys are doing off the court, on the court. It's really cool to watch and maybe try to take a little bit of bits and pieces of guys' games and apply it to yourself.
“It’s really an unbelievable learning process for me. I'm really honoured to be here, and it's really cool to watch everybody and be a part of it.”
Copyright
© Tennis - ATP World Tour