Joining Brisbane on the schedule for week one of the 2024 tennis season is the inaugural Bank of China Open in Hong Kong.
This tournament won’t make as many headlines as Brisbane (mainly because Rafael Nadal is participating there), but the Hong Kong field is a good one–especially by the standards of an ATP 250 event. Andrey Rublev, Karen Khachanov, Frances Tiafoe, and Francisco Cerundolo are the top four seeds with byes, followed by Jan-Lennard Struff, Lorenzo Musetti, Laslo Djere, and Arthur Fils. Emil Ruusuvuori, Roberto Bautista Agut, Marin Cilic, Miomir Kecmanovic, and Botic van de Zandschulp are among the unseeded contingent.
Khachanov, the No. 2 seed, has a difficult path to the final in a deep bottom half of the draw. The 15th-ranked Russian will likely being his week against Ruusuvuori before possibly running into Musetti in the quarterfinals and either Cerundolo, Struff, Cilic, Bautista Agut, or Mackenzie McDonald in the semis.
Stuff vs. Cilic is an intriguing first-round matchup as Cilic returns to the court for the first time since July (he played only three total matches in 2023). Bautista Agut vs. Fabian Marozsan is another first-rounder to watch.
Rublev has a bunch of qualifiers near him in the bracket, although being in the same quarter as Fils could be rough. Fils wrapped up his breakout season on tour with a runner-up performance at the NextGen ATP Finals and then trained with Nadal for a week in Kuwait. The 19-year-old Frenchman, who earned Newcomer of the Year honors, comes in at No. 36 in the rankings and will be eager to snag a seed for the upcoming Australian Open. Tiafoe, Kecmanovic, and Van de Zandschulp also find themselves in the top half of the Hong Kong draw.
who ya got?