Arthur Fils vs Joao Fonseca Prediction, Stats, Form, H2H, 12/18/24

Our second preview comes from the final match of the opening day of action from the ATP’s NextGen Finals. It’s Arthur Fils vs Joao Fonseca in what should be an absolute firecracker.

Fonseca’s win probability is below 25%, while Fils is favoured to win at 1.22 odds. The handicap is 3.5 games and the total games line is 23.5.

Jon Reid’s Fils vs Fonseca prediction is for Fonseca to make this a competitive match.

Arthur Fils vs Joao Fonseca Prediction: Fonseca Capable of Keeping Things Close in High Octane Clash

• Prediction: Over 23.5 Games
• Best Odds: 1.97
• Bookmaker: Unibet
• Stakes: 2/10

Odds as at 10:30 pm UK Time on December 18th, 2024. Odds may now differ.

If there’s one match to watch simply as a fan on Wednesday, it has to be this one. Two youngsters with extraordinary offensive firepower on a tennis court, taking centre stage in an event showcasing the best of the young players the men’s game has to offer.

In the first writeup I spoke a bit about the format change (race to four games, tiebreak at 3-3 and best-of-five sets) and how it can help tighten things up by introducing variance. That should typically help underdogs, but I chose to go with a favourite because of the talent mismatch.

This time, I’m going to stick with the underdog. As much as Fils is the better player right now, finding breaks against the big serving and big hitting Fonseca is not going to be easy. That should lead to a slew of tight sets, and thus, a tight match in general.

These guys are both volatile and error prone and lack polish to a certain extent. Yes, Fils has proven more and is a little further along on his journey at the moment. So he’s a deserved favourite. I’m not sure it’s as lopsided of a match as the current prices in the market would indicate, however.

More tennis previews can be found on the expert insights page.

Arthur Fils Recent Form

What a great end to the year for the Frenchman, who used some of the weaker field 500s to pick up a pair of pretty big trophies.

He has a pretty well rounded game with borderline elite offensive capabilities, and as soon as he finds a way to channel those weapons in a more consistent and repeatable way, he’s going to be knocking on the door of the top-10.

Heck, with the way he’s played in recent months, maybe he’s on his way to that point now.

Opposing him here is not a knock on his game, it’s simply a knock on how often he produces his very best tennis. It’s not totally hit-or-miss as he does tend to play strong tennis more often than not, but it is off often enough for me to think him winning this kind of match enough for him to be a 1.22 favourite is a bit much.

Joao Fonseca Recent Form

At just 18 years old, Fonseca is already among the world’s top-150 in the rankings and the best is yet to come.

As is often the case with young players – especially those with games centred around aggression and powerful groundstrokes – Fonseca saw his fair share of peaks and valleys in 2024.

A few deep Challengers runs and a shocking quarterfinal run at his home country’s ATP 500 level tournaments were incredibly encouraging results. Encouraging to the point that many may forget he had a quartet of first round losses sprinkled in between those runs. Three of which were at Challengers.

From late April through late July, the Brazilian couldn’t find back-to-back wins, before winning a Challenger, nearly qualifying for the U.S. Open and looking strong indoors late in the season on the Challenger circuit in France to end his year.

That’s to be expected with young players. It’s more the ability that impresses me and makes me think that even against someone as highly ranked as Fils, he simply cannot be over 4.00 odds. That is a sub-25% valuation on one of the game’s best prospects, and as strong as Fils, he’s not yet shown the elite consistency that would warrant this respect.

Arthur Fils vs Joao Fonseca H2H – Stat of the Match

This is only the second meeting in what should be a great rivalry in the coming years. It was actually the teenager who won the first encounter, with Fonseca beating Fils on home soil in Brazil back in February.

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