ATP 2018 China Open Draw: Preview & Analysis

Oct 13 3 min read

10:41 am

Rafael Nadal vs. Marcos Baghdatis on Flickr by Tim Wang under CC2.0

The National Tennis Centre in Beijing will be host to the 19th edition of the China Open. Played on outdoor hard courts, the tournament will see eight players from the Top 30 in the main draw. The ATP 500 event will run from October 1-7. World No.1 Rafael Nadal is the defending champion but has pulled out from the Asian swing due to an injury leaving Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro as the top seed for the 2018 China Open. Marcos Baghdatis is the only past champion of the event to feature in the draw. 

Top Half: Del Potro, Coric, Fognini, Cecchinato, Khachanov

Top seed Juan Martin del Potro will face Albert Ramos Vinolas in the first round. Del Potro defeated the Spaniard in their first meeting, which took place five years ago at the first round of Wimbledon. Earlier this year at Cincinnati, Karen Khachanov defeated Sam Querrey in straight sets. The duo are set to face each other for the second time in the opening round of Beijing. After a disappointing American hard court swing, Querrey won a Davis Cup tie for his team and later reached the quarter-finals of Chengdu before heading to Tokyo. Wildcard entrant Feliciano Lopez will take on Borna Coric in the first round. Lopez and Coric have met before in 2016 at the US Open but the Croatian had to withdraw mid-match. The winner of this match will face Mischa Zverev or Filip Krajinovic in the next round. 

Fourth seed Fabio Fognini will take on Moldova's Radu Albot in the opening round. Fognini finished as the runner-up at Chengdu and will now face Albot for the first time in his career. Fognini's best result at Tokyo was reaching the semi-finals in 2015. Joao Sousa got a special exempt in the main draw at Tokyo and he will be facing Andrey Rublev in the opening round. Marton Fucsovics or eighth seed Marco Cecchinato are the probable opponents of Fognini in the quarter-finals if the fourth seed is able to get past his initial round matches. 

Probable semi-finals: Del Potro vs Fognini

Bottom Half: Zverev, Dimitrov, Edmund, Monfils, Verdasco

Second seed Alexander Zverev will face Roberto Bautista Agut in the first round. This will be the fifth career meeting between them with both players poised at 2-2 in the head to head record. The winner will face Wu Yibing or Malek Jaziri in the next round. Gael Monfils and Fernando Verdasco will face each other for the fifth time. Monfils leads the head to head 3-1 but Verdasco won their last meeting at Dubai in 2017. Jack Sock's win-loss record is 5-12 on hard court this season and faces a tough first round tests against Nikoloz Basilashvili. 

Fifth seed Kyle Edmund faces Peter Gojowczyk for the second time in as many years. Edmund won their first encounter at Atlanta in three sets. The winner will face Leonardo Mayer or qualifier Matteo Berrettini in the second round. Dusan Lajovic and Vasek Pospisil made through the qualifying rounds and will now face each other in the first round of the main draw. This will be their third meeting with both the players winning one match apiece in the past. 2016 runner-up Grigor Dimitrov will face lucky loser Tennys Sandgren in the first round. The winner will face a qualifier in the second round. 

Probable semi-finals: Dimitrov vs Zverev