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Overview

The occupational hazards of round-robin tennis mean at this point of the ATP World Tour Finals we’re often left scratching our heads, searching around for a computing device and trying to work out the mind-boggling permutations of qualification. Yet this evening's contest between Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime, fortunately, is easy. It’s a straight shootout: the successful player sets up a semifinal battle against Carlos Alcaraz at this year-end tournament; the unsuccessful competitor is eliminated.

The German is the frontrunner for this: the world No 3 is the more experienced competitor, has been the champion at this tournament previously on two instances and holds the advantage in their personal record six matches to three, winning both the games they've played on an enclosed hard court.

However … this particular court on which Felix has secured most of his championships, he’s riding a high after his compelling comeback against Shelton on Wednesday and he took out Zverev in the US Open early stage in late summer. Furthermore, the court pace is quicker in the host city than at Flushing Meadows, which works even more in the Canadian's favor.

If the German player is reserved, as he did against the Italian, and Auger-Aliassime takes it to the German with his stinging serves and bold strategy, it might very well be the young Canadian – the one-time phenom who was earlier slated before the Spanish and Italian stars to replace the legendary trio – who obtains the questionable privilege of competing with the global leader on Saturday.

The match starts: at about 8.30pm local time, 19:30 Greenwich Mean Time.