The indoor hard-court swing continues next week with a pair of ATP 500 tournaments on the schedule in Vienna and Basel.
Vienna, home of the Erste Bank Open, boasts an especially impressive lineup. Daniil Medvedev is the top seed ahead of Jannik Sinner, Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe, and Karen Khachanov. The field is so stacked that players such as Ben Shelton, Cameron Norrie, Grigor Dimitrov, and Lorenzo Musetti are unseeded.
Right from the start, it’s not going to be an easy road for anyone. Medvedev was done no favors by the draw as the No. 1 seed, as he will kick off his campaign against Arthur Fils and would then meet either Dimitrov or Musetti in round two. Tsitsipas, Paul, Khachanov, and Dominic Thiem also find themselves in the top half of the bracket.
Sinner, the No. 2 seed, faces similar difficulty in the early stages. Shelton, who is currently in the Tokyo final and recently upset Sinner at the Shanghai Masters, is the Italian’s first-round opponent. Tiafoe, Gael Monfils, Francisco Cerundolo, and Dan Evans are also in that section. Rublev and Zverev are on a collision course for the last eight in the other quarter of the bottom half, although they could be challenged by Norrie and Matteo Arnaldi.
Rublev is next in line to clinch a spot in the Nitto ATP Finals (Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Medvedev, and Sinner are already booked in Turin) and will almost certainly do so in Vienna regardless of the results.
who ya got?