If the ATP Finals is the “playground” of the “Serbian Old Man” – Novak Djokovic, who just won his 7th crown, then the tournament system is similar but for U21 players, called Next Gen ATP. Finals, never witnessed young Serbian talents winning the championship, until the guy born in 2003 – Hamad Medjedovic, did this in this year’s tournament.
In the final match, Hamad defeated Arthur Fills (France, 19 years old, ranked 36th ATP) with a dramatic score of 3-4 (6-8), 4-1, 4-2, 3-4 (9 -11) and 4-1. This is the first 5-game final in the history of Next Gen ATP Finals and Hamad is also the first Serbian champion!
Hamad happily said after he was linked to Djokovic: Both Serbs have won two end-of-season summary tournaments for the ATP’s “Eight Great Masters”, at different age levels, U21 and not. age limit…
“We are both from Serbia. He won the Masters, a really big tournament. And I won the award for Next Gen. Obviously, this is something huge and I feel happy to follow in his footsteps in some way.”
Ranked 110 on the ATP Scoreboard, Hamad is the lowest-ranked player to win the Next Gen ATP Finals, and is the 6th Champion, after Chung Hyeon (Korea), Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece), Jannik Sinner ( Italy), Carlos Alcaraz (Spain), Brandon Nakashima (USA). The tournament will not be held in 2020 due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
Hamad shared after the journey of “not losing a single match” and pocketing a record prize money of 514 thousand USD: “I can’t believe I won this tournament. But it will give me a lot of confidence for the new 2024 season. Arthur is a great player, he is ranked top 40 in the world for a reason, so I’m really happy.”
“Everything was very difficult after the first game. I changed clothes, recovered and started playing well again. I didn’t play well when I had a chance to win match point in the fourth set. I was uncomfortable and tense. Thank God I recovered from that, tried to relax as much as possible and in the end I succeeded.”
Hamad was trained by Victor Troicki. Troicki has now retired but still holds the role of Captain of the Serbian Davis Cup Team. This year, Hamad won 3 titles at the ATP Challenger level, he also reached the semi-finals of Gstaad and Astana of the ATP Tour system.
Victory at the Next Gen ATP Finals 2023 will hopefully be a premise for Hamad to enter the ATP Tour and bring a new wave of the Serbian brand. Surely, he cannot have the success of Djokovic, a true GOAT. But a victory, or a title, will also help Hamad and help the entire Serbian tennis community.
