ATP: Austrian Day in Rio de Janeiro

Österreicher-Tag in Rio de Janeiro: With Gerald Melzer, Andreas Haider-Maurer and Dominic Thiem, the entire red-white-red Phalanx will be competing at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament on Tuesday.

Dominic Thiem can sit back and watch his Davis Cup colleagues at work. In Rio de Janeiro, the defending champion has been credited by the organizers for Monday as a travel day, and is contesting his match against Dusan Lajovic as the second game of the Night Session. Lajovic is no stranger in the Austrian camp, last week the Serbian and Andreas Haider-Maurer contested the doubles match in Buenos Aires. Lajovic was also working alongside Dominic Thiem.

The direct comparison with Lajovic is flawless for Thiem: there were three matches between them, the last match in Rio de Janeiro one year ago in round two. 6:2,7:5 was the result for Austria’s number one at that time. Thiem has not yet given up a single set against Lajovic – nor has he given up on his march to win the tournament in Buenos Aires and before that at the Davis Cup in St. Gallen. Pölten. Thiem is second in Rio de Janeiro and Marin Cilic, the tournament’s favourite, has already put Carlos Berlocq forward 6:3 and 6:2 against Carlos Berlocq on Monday.

Tuesday will be opened in the Olympic city of 2016 by Gerald Melzer and Andreas Haider-Maurer. Melzer starts on the Quadra 4 against Pablo Andujar (starting at 8:30 p. m. CET), the Spanish professional who uses his protected ranking as well as Haider-Maurer. In Rio de Janeiro, too, he was unlucky: last week in Buenos Aires,”AHM” drew a local hero with Diego Schwartzman as their first opponent, and now with Aljaz Bedene, the man who was only defeated by Dominic Thiem in the Argentina Open final on Sunday.

Andujar is on position 1821 of the ATP World Ranking after a longer injury break, Melzer is listed as 110. significantly higher. One time they met each other on the tour, 2015 in Munich: Andujar had to give up in the first set. Gerald Melzer was in good shape after the Davis Cup in Quito, where he eliminated permanent winner Victor Estrella Burgos in the last sixteen. The end came for the left-hander against Albert Ramos Vinolas in the round of the last eight.

For Haider-Maurer and Bedene (second match after 20:30 CET on Quadra 1) it is the first encounter. With his final in Buenos Aires, the Slovenian has reached a career high and has been in 43rd place since Monday. Andreas Haider-Maurer is on position 417. In addition to the defeat against Schwartzman in Buenos Aires, only the two matches against Alexandr Dolgopolov in Melbourne and Mirza Basic in Doha, which Haider-Maurer both lost for the election Innsbrucker 2018.

Here the single panel in Rio de Janeiro