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The 2018 Shenzhen Open marks the fifth edition of the ATP 250 tournament. Defending champion David Goffin is the top seed for the event. The event also marks the return of Sir Andy Murray to Shenzhen - his first appearance since winning the title in 2014. Tomas Berdych, who is a two-time champion here, won’t feature in the event as he is still rehabilitating from a back injury. Five of the Top 30 players in the world will participate in the tournament this year. Here is how the players line-up for the 2018 edition:

Top Half: Goffin, Murray, Coric, Shapovalov

Top seed David Goffin has received a bye in the opening round and awaits the winner of the match between Zhang Zhizhen and Andy Murray. Both players have been given wild cards into the event and will face each other for the first time. A potential second round clash between Goffin and Murray looms with the Belgian yet to register a win over the Brit in their five previous meetings. Qualifier Jason Jung will face fifth seed Fernando Verdasco who makes a maiden appearance at Shenzhen. The winner of that match will face the winner of the all-Japanese clash between Tatsuma Ito and Taro Daniel. 

Third seed Borna Coric makes his debut at Shenzhen and awaits the winner of Cameron Norrie and Di Wu. Sixth seed Denis Shapovalov is likely to face Coric in the quarter-finals if the Canadian can successfully win against Ilya Ivashka in the opening round and probable opponent Denis Kudla in the next round. Coric has faced Shapovalov twice this year and has won both meetings. 

Probable semi-finals: Goffin vs Coric

Bottom Half: Tsitsipas, de Minaur, Dzumhur, Seppi

Seventh seed Alex de Minaur will face Yuichi Sugita in the first round. The victor will face the winner of Lukas Lacko and Mackenzie McDonald. Two-time Shenzhen quarter-finalist Jiri Vesely will face Indian qualifier Ramkumar Ramanathan in the first round. The winner will face last year’s semi-finalist Damir Dzumhur in the next round. 

In a bracket dominated by veterans, young Stefanos Tsitsipas who is seeded second in his first ever appearance at Shenzhen has received a bye in the opening round. Tsitsipas was seeded second for the Moselle Open last week but lost to Ricardas Berankis in the Round of 16. The Greek awaits the winner of Dusan Lajovic and Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the next round. 2014 quarter-finalist Andreas Seppi faces Albert Ramos-Vinolas for the second time in his career. Seppi won their first meeting, which took place in 2014 at Munich. The winner will face either Guillermo Garcia Lopez or Viktor Troicki. Troicki leads their head to head 4-2. Garcia Lopez has been a runner-up at Shenzhen in 2015 whereas Troicki’s best result was reaching the quarter-finals in 2014. A win for Troicki is likely to square him against Seppi who won their lone meeting nine years ago at the World Team Championship. 

Probable semi-finals: Tsitsipas vs de Minaur