Tennis Race to the Play offs • Mid-Week Update: Kontaveit Surging While Key Matchups Wait Ahead for ATP in Vienna

Race to the Championships Mid-Week Update: Kontaveit surging while key matchups wait ahead for men in Vienna

By: Thomas Cluck

With the fall indoor tennis season now fully underway, the final stage of the 2021 tennis season is heating up with spots at the two year-end championships on the line. 

The women are in the final week of qualification for the WTA Finals newly relocated to Guadalajara, Mexico from Shenzhen, China this year while the men have two big events in these final weeks remaining still with plenty of points on the line ahead of the first ever edition of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy after so long in London at the O2 Arena.

The story of the week is the woman of the moment on tour, Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit, racing through match after match, week after week, with her charge towards an 11th hour qualification coming down to winning the title this week in Cluj-Napoca, Romania or not. 

After not dropping a set through her first three matches to advance to the semifinals, Kontaveit now stands two matches away from her fourth title of 2021 and second in as many weeks after her big win in Moscow last week. 

If she fails to win the title, Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur- who elected not to play this week in Courmayeur, Italy- would retain her eighth spot and head to Guadalajara instead. 

The story of the week in Vienna features Norway’s Casper Ruud and Italy’s Jannik Sinner looking to separate themselves from the rest of the pack in securing the final two spots in Turin with a high-stakes quarterfinal battle between the two Friday night looming large over all of this. 

Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime is trying to hang in there as well facing Alexander Zverev while Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman also tries to come from behind to make the season-ending championship taking on Frances Tiafoe, who won a crazy encounter with tournament top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas yesterday evening in the Austrian capital.

Stay tuned to 10sBalls.com for more updates and all the information as the 2021 tennis season comes to a close with the Races to the Championships heating up this fall!