For the first time in recent memory, the Next Gen swiftly took care of the old guard in Shanghai. All four semifinalists were Next Gen, with Berrettini, Zverev, Tsitsipas and Medvedev making it all the way through. Zverev took out Federer while Tsitsipas took care of Djokovic. Nadal was nowhere to be seen given he pulled out with an injury. Lucky for him Djokovic didn’t accumulate too many points in this tournament given the fact that both of them are going for the number one ranking.

None of that mattered in this tournament though. The Next Gen ruled it and may have given us a preview of what life will be like without the likes of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal. And out of the Next Gen bunch, nobody is playing better than Medvedev. As predicted by anyone who’s been paying attention to his play in the last few months, he seems to be unstoppable.

He’s now played six finals in a row, and has won the last two Masters series events, at Cincinnati and now Shanghai. He’ll be heading into the Paris Masters as the favorite for sure. At least he’s my favorite. For me, he was favorite going into Shanghai and he delivered. I also had him in the US Open Final and he delivered. He should be nicknamed the “Delivery Man” because you count on him to go deep in whatever tournament he enters.

In terms of the other three Next Gen players, it was nice to see Berrettini make it to another important semifinal appearance to back up his US Open semis appearance. This tells me that he wasn’t a fluke over there. His appearance in the Shanghai Masters semis also looks really good for Andy Murray, whom Berrettini was beat by just a couple of weeks ago at the China Open.

Finally, it’s good to see Zverev get a solid win over Roger Federer and make the final. He’s had a terrible season and points from the finals appearance go a long way to helping him qualify for the ATP Finals.