Singles draw for the Western & Southern Open, an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati was made on Friday. The tournament begins on Sunday, August 12.
Nole is no.2 seed and has a first round BYE. This will be his eighth appearance in Cincinnati.
He will face world no.27 Andreas Seppi in the second round. Seppi beat Robin Haase of Netherlands 6-4, 6-4 in Round 1.
Novak leads 8-0 against the Italian.
Nole’s potential rivals in the later stages of the tournament are:
3rd round: Alexandr Dolgopolov (UKR, 13), Nikolay Davydenko (RUS)
Quarter-finals: Janko Tipsarevic (SRB, 7), Marin Cilic (CRO,12)
Semi-finals: Andy Murray (GBR, 3), Juan Martin del Potro (ARG, 6), John Isner (USA, 9)
Roger Federer (SUI, 1), David Ferrer (ESP, 4), Tomas Berdych (CZE, 5)… are in the top half of the draw.
Novak finished runner-up in Cincinnati in 2008, 2009 and 2011.
Last year a sore shoulder forced him to retire in the second set of the final match against Andy Murray.
Photo: Getty Images
