Alexander Zverev won’t be taking it easy after his French Open run as the German will kick off his grass-court campaign at the Stuttgart Open just days after the Roland Garros final.
World No 4 Zverev faces Carlos Alcaraz in the clay-court Grand Slam final on Sunday and a few days later he will return to action on grass as he is the top seed for the ATP 250 event. However, don’t be too surprised if the German does indeed pull out of the tournament in the coming days as the players often opt to take breathers after deep runs at major events.
But as things stand, Zverev has a bye in the first round and he will face an American in the second with the clash scheduled for Thursday as he will take on the winner of the Christopher Eubanks-Brandon Nakashima match.
He is projected to meet seventh seed Jan-Lennard Struff, who takes on Fabio Cobolli first up, in the quarter-final with four seed and defending champion Frances Tiafoe a likely semi-final opponent.
American Tiafoe has to get past Yannick Hanfmann or qualifier Henri Squire in the second round while he could face sixth seed Jack Draper in the quarter-final.
Draper opens up against Austrian Sebastian Ofner and if he gets through that then he could face fellow Brit Andy Murray in the second round. Former world No 1 Murray will play in his fourth event since he suffered a serious ankle injury at the Miami Open. There were initially fears that it could keep him out of Wimbledon, but he returned to the Challenger Tour in May and then competed at the Geneva Open and French Open.
9 tennis siblings playing doubles: Bob and Mike Bryan, Venus and Serena Williams, Jamie and Andy Murray He made first-round exits in both Geneva and Roland Garros and he admitted after the Paris defeat that “my back has been a problem the last few weeks for practice and stuff. It has not been great”, but he has had time to recover.
The focus has switched to grass and he will face world No 50 Marcos Giron in the first round on Monday with a possible date against Draper later in the week if he gets through his opener.
Ben Shelton headlines the bottom half of the draw and the second seed will take on a qualifier in the second round while he could face either Denis Shapovalov or another qualifier in the quarter-final.
Alexander Bublik is projected to meet Shelton in the semi-final, but the third seed has some tricky matches ahead as he will face either rising star Hamad Medjedovic or Fabian Marozsan in the second round and fifth Lorenzo Musetti in the quarter-final if the seedings hold.
