The 2023 U.S. Open is just one week away. Yes, seemingly in the blink of an eye the Grand Slam season is almost over. There is no chance at a calendar-year slam following Novak Djokovic’s loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final, but nonetheless plenty of intrigue is in store for New York.
Before we can focus entirely on the U.S. Open, however, one more warmup event remains. A field of 48 is participating at the Winston-Salem Open, where Borna Coric, Tallon Griekspoor, Sebastian Korda, Arthur Fils, and Emil Ruusuvuori are among the seeded players.
Winston-Salem Open
Where: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Surface: Hard
Points: 250
Prize money: $760,930
Top seed: Borna Coric
2023 champion: Adrian Mannarino (not playing)
Draw analysis: First of all, draws for 250-point tournaments in weeks directly preceding a major don’t really mean much—at least not compared to other events. Just about anything can happen, which is why these are the toughest weeks of the year to handicap. Unexpected results are sure to take place, so it hardly matters if you run into top seeds or lower-ranked opponents in the early rounds. The most motivated players are the ones who generally do well…but there may not be a lot of them in Winston-Salem. Most guys are eager to get to New York City and start preparing for the U.S. Open.
Coric, though, is one player whom you have to think wants to make a real run in Winston-Salem. The No. 1 need and 2022 Cincinnati champion needs to get some hard-court matches under his belt following early losses in Toronto and Cincy. Coric has a relatively favorable draw on paper and could face Marcos Giron in round three, Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals, and Sebastian Baez or Aleksandar Vukic in the semis.
The bottom half of the bracket looks much tougher, headlined by an in-form Griekspoor, Korda, Fils, Lehecka, Ruusuvuori, Richard Gasquet, and Marton Fucsovics. Griekspoor and Ruusuvuori are on a collision course for the last 16, with the winner of that potential showdown likely to meet Lehecka in the quarterfinals. Now that’s a rough section. Fils will probably kick off his campaign against Brandon Nakashima prior to a possible all-French date with Richard Gasquet in the third round.
Hot: Tallon Griekspoor, Arthur Fils, Aleksandar Vukic, Marcos Giron, Sebastian Ofner, Max Purcell, Roman Safiullin, Alex Michelsen
Cold: Borna Coric, Sebastian Korda, Botic van de Zandschulp, Jack Draper, Ilya Ivashka, Benjamin Bonzi, Marc-Andrea Huesler
Quarterfinal predictions: Borna Coric over Roman Safiullin, Aleksandar Vukic over Alex Michelsen, Arthur Fils over Ilya Ivashka, and Jiri Lehecka over Emil Ruusuvuori
Semifinals: Coric over Vukic and Fils over Lehecka
Final: Coric over Fils
who ya got?