Two Years in the Making: Junior Rivalry Turns to Revenge at the Next Gen ATP Finals

The ATP Tour Calendar has officially ended, with the Next Gen ATP Finals of 2025 crowning a brand-new champion. Top seed Learner Tien met expectations and corrected the previous year’s shortcomings to deliver a stellar tournament performance, losing only one match in the round robin stages, and defeated Belgian Alexander Blockx today for the trophy. The win also provided sweet revenge for the American, who lost to Blockx back in the 2023 Junior Australian Open Boys’ final. Here’s how new lines were drawn out today.

​Player Similarities and Strategies

This match did not provide Tien with an opponent who closely matched him on paper, unlike yesterday. The Belgian stands at a towering six-foot-four, and uses his wide-reaching wingspan well, especially to unleash heavy forehands from almost any end and corner of the court. In his arsenal also lies a heavy serve that kept him up to speed with his top-seed opponent’s inconceivable speed and consistency. A good mix: solid serve, a groundstroke that both endures and closes out points, and of course, admirable movement for his height that sustained the lengthy rallies that Tien enjoys.

​Tien, on the other hand, has that frightening speed, which evidently has levels, as he was more than able to kick it up several notches to survive the Belgian’s blinding shots. His left-handedness posed no visible threat to Blockx, who cracked at every ball without trouble or concern for the reverse lefty spin. The top-seed’s serve was solid, but not where the weight of his point makeup came from, and he played at a decent first serve accuracy level of 65 percent, compared to Blockx’s impressive 79 percent. Even with all of this, the American top-seed won 85 percent of the first serves that he did make, foretelling his commitment to win everything possible, including that trophy.

​How Tien Saw it Through

Despite being ragged about considerably, and despite facing first serves nearly 80%, the American’s steady nature never wavered. The first set was a close scare, going to a tiebreak, and he had to come from behind to win it, after quickly suffering heavy and wide-placed returns that left him on the constant run. Tien decided to gift the barrage he was being given back in kind, sending Blockx to every corner and spreading him thin in rallies, forcing the tall ball-striker to play a game that isn’t his strength, and shifting the control back to himself.

​By the tiebreak, Tien’s plan had flustered the Belgian, who still hadn’t come up with any helpful answer to what he had to endure. No helpful answers, that is. The rallies became shorter, and Blockx made it to fewer shots, which flipped a desperate switch in him, making him rashly go to end points where the chance of success was low. While losing ground in rallies bit by bit, the lefty top-seed also figured out his opponent’s serve, allowing him no more than six aces in the first set, as he contorted to reach every booming one, and made it, forcing the lull of the game back into rallies, his bread and butter.

​Once the first set was done and won, it was alarmingly clear that Blockx simply had no answer to Tien’s brutal and efficient consistency, and he was made to work too hard for every single point, won or lost. Coming to the net was a sure win, with his wingspan, but he only got the chance four times and won those four points. Tien was already operating fine and with little signs of fatigue at the level he raised the game to, was making both easy and fought-out points, and the points gap widened with every unforced error and ball dumped into the bottom of the net; Blockx was doing his best, but failing to keep even the intensity he had in the beginning.

​So last year’s finalist became this year’s undisputable champion, and with a side of sweet, two-year-old revenge. Tien grabbed the victory at a satisfying 4-3, 3, 4-2, 4-1, helped greatly by Blockx’s 23 unforced errors that cancelled out his 18 winners. With only one ace and one double-fault, Tien denied Blockx from being the first Belgian Next Gen ATP champion, just as Blockx denied him being the Australian Open Junior Boys’ champion. The two’s official, professional tour H2H starts out 1-0 in Tien’s favor.