Now come the coin toss and warm-up. Sinner is giving away a few inches in height to Fritz, so the world No 1 does a big jump at the net to show who’s really boss. The toss goes Sinner’s way, and he elects to serve first. Ever the gentleman, he picks up the coin from the court to save the umpire the bother.

In the meantime there’s a light show going on. There are some dancers too. And the music is blasting out just to pump everyone up a bit more. And now the players step on to court, with the home hero Sinner getting by far the louder welcome. No surprises there.

… or three.

Sinner has been doing his final warm-ups and the players will be out in a minute or two:

Taking out my calculator and scratching my head (a lot), Fritz will reach the semi-finals with a match to spare if he beats Sinner, while Sinner can’t qualify tonight. I think. The complexities of round-robin tennis.

Sinner was the runner-up in Turin last year, losing to Djokovic in straight sets, while Fritz is making his second appearance at the ATP Finals after a late call-up in 2022, when he reached the semi-finals.

“My first time [in Turin], I was an alternate, no one really expected much of me,” Fritz said. “I was playing with house money, no pressure. Now, I’m putting more expectation on myself to do better, I’m just a better player.”

Back to this evening’s matters. This will be the fourth meeting between Sinner and Fritz. Sinner has the edge in their head-to-head, leading 2-1, with Fritz’s win coming back in 2021, before the real Jannik Sinner stood up.

“I have to be at my top if I want to win or get close,” Sinner told the ATP website of facing Fritz. “It’s going to be tough, this I know. I know that I will have to raise my level, so hopefully I can do that. I feel like he has improved a lot in the past one and a half, two years. He is serving much better, hitting the ball very, very hard. He’s a great competitor.”

In other tennis news:

As for Daniil Medvedev, having been booed for his racket-smashing antics against Fritz on Sunday, the Russian stuck his fingers in his ears after a much-improved display against Alex de Minaur earlier. “I went into this match blocking the noise, even from myself,” the 2020 champion said after his brilliant 6-2, 6-4 victory over the Australian. “I really didn’t care what was happening on court, I just tried to play, and it was a good feeling.”

The result means Medvedev is back in semi-final contention, while De Minaur will be knocked out with a match to spare on his ATP Finals debut if Sinner v Fritz goes to three sets.

We’ve already had a repeat of this year’s Wimbledon men’s doubles final today – and the result was the same too, with Britain’s Henry Patten and his Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara defeating Australia’s Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson 7-6 (3), 7-5.

Patten and Heliovaara are through to the semi-finals with a match to spare, because Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic have just beaten Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, saving a match point in the second set before winning a match tie-break 10-8, with the late drama warming the crowd up nicely for Sinner v Fritz. They’re already screaming loudly – just wait until Sinner steps on to court…

While we’re waiting: here are the highlights from their US Open final.

Preamble