2022 ATP Finals Matches Rating (Part One)
You might have clicked on this, not quite knowing what it was. Let me bestow knowledge unto you then. This is a new thing I’m going to try and do every year (hopefully it’ll come out sooner than halfway through the next year for the 2023 edition.) Anyway, it is where I sit down, and watch every single one of the final matches of the ATP tour’s vast selection of tournaments, and then I rate them on a scale from 0 to 10. The rating is purely based on my enjoyment of the match as a viewer, so there will obviously be some bias because it is opinion based. I apologize if I offend you by trashing on your favorite players, but that’s just my opinion. This section of it (part one) has the tournaments from the beginning of the year in January, all the way to the tournament immediately preceding Wimbledon. I did not include the slams in this one, as I am saving them for last in their own separate writeup, because I’m going to write a lot more on the Grand Slam finals than I would on a normal 250 final. So, without further ado, here is: Beanz’s ATP Final Matches Ratings (Part One)!
Adelaide 1: 6.7/10. Monfils always puts on a show and Khachanov did enough to make it a challenge for Monfils. Good match overall.
Melbourne Summer Set: 8.3/10. Classic Rafa, started the 3 tournament win streak and Cressy had a great match considering he was playing a 20 time grand slam champ.
Sydney Tennis Classic: 5.4/10. Karatsev is pretty good, and Murray wasn’t at his best form, but the match was pretty decent. Not much to say anything about. Just mediocre.
Adelaide 2: 7.95/10. Rinderknech’s first ever final and he didn’t disappoint! And who doesn’t like some good Thanasi Kokkinakis tennis? Quite the enjoyable match from two players I didn’t expect to play well.
Open Sud de France: 8.35/10. The clash of the Alexanders! You could tell Zverev wasn’t at his best, but he did quite enough for Bublik to show why he deserved his title! What a match. I definitely recommend watching it!
Pune: 4.3/10. Not too much of a match. I wish I could’ve seen better from one of my favorite Emil Russuvuori but Sousa did play a decent match.
Cordoba: 5/10. I decided to make a match in the exact middle and this one was it. It didn’t really make me want to keep watching it intently, but it wasn’t bad necessarily.
Rotterdam: 7.3/10. This match was quite good from FAA and Tsitsipas played alright. Overall pretty enjoyable. Not too eye-catching though.
Dallas Open: 0/10. This match was just plain awful. It was pretty much 2 hours of serve practice with some rallies for fun. If you can even call it “fun”. If you want to hate watching tennis, watch this match.
Buenos Aires: 8.4/10. Casper! What a great way to start his season. I enjoyed this match thoroughly. Deigo Schwartzman played a great match but just fell apart a little at the end. But he still did great and Casper did incredible.
Doha: 6/10. Bautista Agut definitely didn’t do bad in this match. I didn’t necessarily love it, but it was some pretty nice tennis to watch. Again, just not much of a stunning match.
Rio: 8.8/10. Another Deigo Schwartzman clay final, and it was even better of a performance than the last, and Carlos Alcaraz played his part incredibly! They both had a great bunch of rallies and shots worthy of the highlight reel. I definitely loved this one.
Marseille: 9/10. If you want to watch some peak Andrey Rublev, watch this match! He played some incredible tennis and FAA seems like a great matchup for Andrey’s skills.
Delray Beach: 7.4/10. Reilly Opelka pulled this match down a little due to his not very entertaining tennis, but Cam Norrie definitely offset that with his great points and playstyle!
Acapulco: 8.6/10. Another Rafa final! I don’t want to seem biased toward him, but Rafa is just amazing! Every match of his that I watch, I find so enjoyable and his quality is supreme! Not to mention Cam Norrie’s great match as well. This match was great overall!
Dubai: 5.7/10. I do love a good Andrey Rublev match, but this one was hindered quite a bit due to Jiri Vesely. He is good, don’t get me wrong. I just think his play style conflicts with Rublev’s to make the rallies less enjoyable.
Santiago: 9.9/10. This match right here is one of the best I’ve ever seen! I didn’t expect it to be this good based on who played it, being Baez and Martinez. But it ended up l being 3 sets worth of incredible rallies, shots, and an intense mental battle for their first title. It was so good, that I was guessing until the final point who the victor would be. Just some of the best tennis I’ve watched.
Indian Wells: 9.42/10. Yet another insane Rafa Nadal match. But this time, his opponent, Fritz, was prepared and let me tell you. He played some incredible tennis this match. The reason it isn’t rated higher is because both had injuries hindering their play through the match. But it was great nonetheless.
Miami: 9.65/10. GOOD GRIEF CARLOS! This match was something else, and Carlos Alcaraz was entertaining the whole time. Ruud was playing great as well, it was just Alcaraz being Alcaraz though, and we all know how that goes. The second set on this one was not as good as the first, because it was a servefest, and I’m not a fan of those. There were some amazing things going on, and I’m not scared for the future of tennis after watching this.
Marrakech: 3.2/10. This match was bad to say the least. The thing with it is, there was too many errors, and the rallies were subpar. It was just an uninteresting match.
Houston: 8.55/10. This is the most surprised I’ve been at a match. I thought this one would be abysmal because it was 2 servebots going up against each other, but I think the clay courts helped out by slowing the ball down, meaning there were more rallies, and less aces and unreturnable serves. I think this one is definitely worth a watch if you have time. I’m sorry for slandering you Reilly Opelka, forgive me of my sins.
Monte-Carlo: 9.12/10. Ok Stefanos! I see you! This match played out how a masters final should. It started calm, but there was tension. It then progressed and got more competitive over time. There was some amazing playing throughout the match, and Tsitsipas was about as good as I’ve seen him here. I think Davidovich Fokina could’ve kept his peak level throughout the match, and he ended up making a lot of errors and such. I did enjoy how he was able to make a lot of breaks, but Stefanos really just ended up outplaying him. I also want to note the beauty of the courts, I wish I could play on them.
Barcelona: 9.37/10. Carlos is back at it again, this time in his home country. He definitely did a great job fending off PCB, playing some unbeatable tennis throughout. The serves were very precise and speedy, which is something I love to see in a match, and there were some nice highlight reel shots, just overall a pretty darn good match.
Belgrade: 9.58/10. Ok, this match had the best single set of tennis to this point, the second set of this match was the best from Djokovic, and Rublev really shone in the second set, but also throughout the entire match, I said previously to watch the Marseille match if you want peak Rublev, but I think this one is better than that! So peak Rublev, along with some good stuff from Novak Djokovic, gives this one a really high rating.
Munich: 2.12/3. Well, this match was kind of disappointing, Botic van de Zandschulp had to retire from injury, and since they only played about a third of the match, I only made the ranking out of 3 instead of 10. I think this match had the potential to be above 9, or at least a high 8, but it sadly did not finish, so I had to rate it lower. Hoping for more of these two playing each other soon!
Estoril: 5.82/10. I call this one, “Big Foe’s Big Letdown” Tiafoe went up against Baez here, and at the start I was excited because Tiafoe broke first game and then backed the break up, he got up another break point, and then crumpled. Why? I could not tell you. He just started losing. Baez was great after that turn point, but Tiafoe just never came back into the game. It was sad enough to warrant this poor score. 5 points for Baez, and 0.82 points for those first few games from Tiafoe. How unfortunate. But not for Baez, good job to you, small Argentine (the 2nd)
Madrid: 4.76/10. sad trombone noise Great job Alexander Zver(ror)ev. You choked harder than an infant with a bucket of legos. Kind of sad to be honest. Alcaraz was on point all match long, but Zverev just could not hit the ball in whatsoever. Yikes.
Rome: 9.78/10. Wow. That’s just incredible. Novak being an unstoppable force again, mere weeks after the upsetting loss at Belgrade. I could watch this Novak all day and all night. Forever. Tsitsipas was good in the second set, he really just got bullied in that first one, but overall they both played some stellar tennis, giving this the best Masters 1000 final (at the moment).
Lyon: 7.05/10. This match wasn’t all too much, a lot of the rallies were kinda short and the ones that weren’t, they were alright, but most of Molcan and Norrie’s shots were quite high and it looked like they were straining quite a bit, but the match was OK overall.
Geneva: 4.27/10. Oof, this one was not enjoyable. Ruud choked a lot more than he should’ve, Sousa played well, but his play was filled with a lot of errors, and good rallies weren’t common from either. Don’t exactly recommend this one.
BOSS Open: 8.41/10. Ok but why does this match feel like it was played in 2011? The camera quality, along with Andy Murray being in a final make me think this is 2011. Anyway, the tennis was pretty good, defense is definitely Murray’s specialty, and it did pair nicely with Berrettini’s grass dominant serve and volley offense. My only thing was that it flowed kind of slow, making it to where I wasn’t all that captivated by the match. The extended highlights would probably be better than watching the whole thing. It was still a good one though.
Libema Open: 9/10. Medvedev was so scared of Tim that his nose started bleeding. I guess it was for good reason too, because Tim was amazing! I had never heard of Tim until this tournament, and then he won the entire thing and became the talk of the tennis world. Medvedev seemed to be frazzled throughout the second set, and didn’t really know what hit him. Ritjhoven played great the whole time though, and Medvedev’s performance in the first set was good enough to merit this score.
Queen’s Club: 9.64/10. Goodness Berrettini! I don’t know how Berrettini is getting me to love all these grass finals. He is just something else, his shots were so calculated and perfectly placed, his serves were super strong, and his point structure was immaculate. If I could only watch one player on one surface for the rest of my life it would come down to Berrettini on grass, or Djokovic on the hard courts. Krajinovic also played well, but he just cracked under the massive force that is Berrettini’s serve and volley offense. This match is totally worth a watch.
Halle: 6.33/10. “Stop Stop! He’s already dead!” was pretty much my reaction to this match. Hurkacz just came out guns ablazing and took Medvedev apart in the first set, and there was no coming back from that. Medvedev getting obliterated isn’t really that fun, and there were quite a few errors, giving this one a suboptimal rating. Funnily enough, that fan who ran out on court and wrestled with the security actually put this match up a few points. It was kind of funny really. Good job though on a first ATP 500 title Hubi!
Mallorca: 4.28/10. I will note that I watched this final right after the Eastbourne one, so I might be a tad biased, but GOOD LORD! These courts are ugly. So was the camera quality. The tennis was better though, but that wasn’t a high bar to clear. RBA had some amazing moments, but it was few and far between, and Tsitsipas was just alright. Not the most fun to watch, I’d just recommend the highlight reel to be honest.
Eastbourne: 6.21/10. Ok first of all, these courts are gorgeous. I started the final and was like “man these look amazing, but the worn down grass at the baseline kind of ruins it.” Then I got the idea to check them at the beginning of the week by looking at the first match played during the week, and, my goodness is that an aesthetically pleasing court. The court alone would get a perfect 10/10, but sadly I’m not judging based on court beauty. On the other hand, the tennis was not the best. While the serve and volley stuff was great for the first set, it quickly lost its novelty, and the rest of the match just felt repetitive, it could be worse though, so it gets a decent 6.21 rating.