On Monday, Austria’s largest tennis tournament will begin in the Vienna Stadthalle. The field around local hero Dominic Thiem is more balanced than ever.
Dominic Thiem cannot complain about a lack of competition at his home tournament in the Vienna Stadthalle. Irrespective of the fact that the dominator of recent months, Novak Djokovic, has not found his way to Vienna after all. The ATP-World-Tour-500-Event starts on Monday, besides the tournament victory the tennis fans also look at the development in the fight for the places at the ATP finals in London.
The starting situation has changed due to Juan Martin del Potro’s unfortunate injury and the Argentinian is eliminated after the break of his kneecap for London. Del Potro was already qualified for London as third in the “Race”. Represented in Vienna: The numbers seven to ten in the annual classification, separated by almost 800 points.
Kevin Anderson (3,720) has the best starting position, followed by Thiem (3,535). Kei Nishikori (3,000) could not even catch up with the Austrian in a victory in the Stadthalle, John Isner (2,930) will try his hand in Stockholm this week and could overtake the Japanese in the semi-finals.
The points in Vienna, however, are not that easy to score – especially since Borna Coric, the finalist from Shanghai, will be coming to the Austrian capital, while last year’s winner Lucas Pouille may regain his inspiration. And none of the top seeded players has an increased desire to meet strong serveers like Milos Raonic or Sam Querrey early on.
And there’s Grigor Dimitrov, who doesn’t have much success in the current campaign, but still draws on the points from the ATP final in 2017. And for the time being he is a member of the top ten in men’s tennis.
Last year, Dominic Thiem was defeated by Richard Gasquet, the Frenchman again gives Vienna the honour in 2018, as does his compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He celebrated his first match victory on the ATP Tour since February in Antwerp on Tuesday.
Dennis Novak will receive a Wild Card, the Austrian Davis Cup player is warming up at the ATP-Challenger in Ismaning this week.