Generali Open: Fernando Verdasco and Richard Gasquet come to Kitzbühel

About eight weeks before the start of the Generali Open in Kitzbühel, tournament director Alexander Antonitsch has announced the first additional players for his event. In addition to top star Dominic Thiem, Spain’s Fernando Verdasco and France’s Richard Gasquet were also signed up for the ATP tournament from 30 July to 4 August.

Verdasco has recently shown at the French Open with a five-set victory over world ranked fifth Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) that despite his 34 years he is still not old. This year’s Rio finalist comes to Gamsberg for the seventh time, for the first time in five years. His best performances so far were the 2005 final and two further semi-finals.

For the first time the 31-year-old Gasquet comes to the tournament in Tyrol. Both players had their respective ranking high some time ago with the seventh rank in each case. Gasquet is currently 32nd, Verdasco 35th.

The advance sales are excellent. “For the days from Thursday to Saturday there are only remaining tickets,” said Antonitsch. The tournament boss, who has held this position since April 2011, wants to wait a little longer before issuing the two wildcards available to him. First and foremost he wants to make sure that besides Austria’s figurehead Thiem also another ÖTV player is in the main competition.

“Currently, everyone else would probably need a wildcard,” says Antonitsch, who expects the cut off to be around 70 to 75. So the last directly qualified player in this circle must be in the ATP ranking.