It’s the opening day at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin and the stakes are always high for this event, not at leat looking at the prize money in Turin. Here’s a preview for today’s evening match, Ben Shelton vs. Arthur Fils, with our betting predictions.
Ben Shelton vs Arthur Fils
Shelton opens his second consecutive ATP Finals campaign as the third seed and world No. 4, after a career-best season. He reached his first Grand Slam final at the US Open, where he lost to Alexander Zverev, and has won four titles, in Dallas, Munich, Stuttgart and Montreal. He arrives off the Paris Masters final, where he led Carlos Alcaraz 4-2 in the second set before losing 7-6(5), 7-5. Turin hasn’t been kind to him so far, since he went 0-3 here last year, and he is in a group that also contains Zverev and Jodar. Should be different this time around though.
Fils is making his ATP Finals debut as the sixth seed and the first Frenchman to qualify since Gael Monfils a decade ago. It’s a remarkable comeback from a stress fracture in his lower back that kept him out for eight months of 2025. Since returning in February he has reached the Doha final and the Miami semifinals, won Barcelona in April and then claimed his first Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati. He has been less convincing since then, though, and lost to Taylor Fritz in Paris last week, and he is still dealing with some injury issues.
What gear setups are they playing with in Turin? See more racquet stats for the ATP Finals.
H2H
Shelton leads the head-to-head 2-1, but only 1-1 at tour level. They first met at the Laver Cup in 2023 in the round robin, which Shelton won 7-6(4), 6-1. Fils won their Tokyo quarterfinal in 2024 in a three-hour match where both players battled cramps, and Shelton won the Basel semifinal a month later, 6-3, 7-6(9), without facing a break point. They haven’t played since.
Predictions and best bets
Fils has the power to match Shelton from the baseline, and he’s already beaten him once on tour, so this isn’t a gimme for the American. But Shelton’s lefty serve is a big weapon on a fast indoor court, as the Basel match showed, and he enters with better form and the experience of having played here before, while Fils is a debutant with a recent injury history.
I expect a tight match, given that two of their three meetings went to a deciding set or a final-set tiebreak, but I’ll go with Shelton. Apart from the backhand, I just don’t see too many areas where Fils is better than Shelton at the moment.
My bet: Shelton to win in three sets
