Singles draw for the Western & Southern Open, the seventh ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament of the season, was made on Friday. The event begins on Sunday, August 10, and will be played at the Lindner Family Tennis Center till August 17.
Novak is a top seed and has a first round BYE. He will open campaign against world no.31 Gilles Simon of France (7-1 H2H record) who beat Australian qualifier Bernard Tomic 6-3, 6-2.
Nole’s potential rivals in the later stages of the tournament are:
3rd round: Tommy Robredo (ESP, 16), Sam Querrey (USA, WC)
Quarter-finals: David Ferrer (ESP, 6), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA, 12)
Semi-finals: Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI, 3), Grigor Dimitrov (BUL, 7), Marin Cilic (CRO, 14)
Roger Federer (SUI, 2), Tomas Berdych (CZE, 4), Milos Raonic (CAN, 5), Andy Murray (GBR, 8) … are in the bottom half of the draw.
Novak has a shot at tennis history next week, when he attempts to complete a sweep of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments.
Should he win the Western & Southern Open for the first time, he would become the first singles player to win all of the ATP World Tour’s nine premier events.
The Serbian world no.1 has finished runner-up in Cincinnati on four occasions, in 2008 (l. to Murray), 2009 (l. to Federer), 2011 (l. to Murray) and 2012 (l. to Federer).
“Completing the Career Golden Masters obviously adds more importance to this tournament for me,” said Djokovic. “I care about winning this title a lot. I lost four times in the finals. I haven’t been really close in those finals either. But I did have a lot of good matches in Cincinnati. Hopefully I can go one step further this time.“
Novak won 180 ATP points last year by reaching quarter-finals (l. to Isner 6-7, 6-3, 5-7).
Defending champion Rafael Nadal is out of the Masters 1000 event with a right wrist injury.
Photo: AP
