Del Potro To Face Shapovalov Test At Queen's Club
Del Potro To Face Shapovalov Test At Queen’s Club
Tsitsipas, Anderson and Wawrinka open campaigns against British opposition
You won’t have to wait long for the first blockbuster match at the Fever-Tree Championships this year.
Third seed Juan Martin del Potro will face #NextGenATP Canadian Denis Shapovalov in his opening match of the 2019 grass-court season. The World No. 12 , making his fifth appearance at the Queen’s Club (5-4), will be aiming to take the lead in his FedEx ATP Head2Head series against Shapovalov for the first time. The Canadian upset Del Potro in their first meeting at the 2017 Coupe Rogers, en route to his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final, before Del Potro levelled the series at the 2018 ASB Classic.
Del Potro and Shapovalov share the second quarter of the draw with sixth seed Milos Raonic and 2017 winner Feliciano Lopez. Raonic opens against Marco Cecchinato, while Lopez will meet Marton Fucsovics of Hungary.
View Queen’s Club Draw
Headlining the top half of the draw with Del Potro is top seed and World No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas. The #NextGenATP Greek will meet British No. 1 Kyle Edmund for a spot in the second round. Tsitsipas will be aiming to regain sole ownership of the lead for most wins on the ATP Tour this week, a mark he currently shares with 12-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal. They both own 32 victories this season.
In Tsitsipas’ quarter, #NextGenATP Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, seeded eighth, faces a tough opening test against 2014 champion Grigor Dimitrov. Auger-Aliassime will arrive in London with confidence, after reaching his third ATP Tour championship match of the season at the MercedesCup in Stuttgart. Nick Kyrgios and Jeremy Chardy also feature in the top quarter of the draw.
In the bottom half of the draw, second seed Kevin Anderson will end his three-month absence from the ATP Tour, due to a right elbow injury, against British No. 2 Cameron Norrie. The South African, who last competed at the Miami Open presented by Itau in March, owns an 8-2 record from his opening three tour-level events of the season. The World No. 8 opened his 2019 campaign by lifting his sixth ATP Tour trophy at the Tata Open Maharashtra in Pune (d. Karlovic).
Another seeded player facing British opposition in his first match is Stan Wawrinka. The 2014 semi-finalist (l. to Dimitrov) will face Daniel Evans in the first round of an ATP Tour event for the second time this year. At the BNP Paribas Open in March, Wawrinka recovered from a set down to overcome Evans 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3.
Fourth seed Daniil Medvedev and defending champion Marin Cilic both feature in the third quarter. Medvedev opens against 2011 quarter-finalist Fernando Verdasco and Cilic will meet two-time ATP Tour titlist Cristian Garin. Last year, Cilic saved one championship point to defeat Novak Djokovic in the final.
The doubles draw marks the return of five-time singles champion Andy Murray. The former singles World No. 1 is not immune to the theme of British players facing seeded opposition, as he and partner Feliciano Lopez open against top seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah. Murray has not appeared on the ATP Tour since the Australian Open in January, after undergoing right hip surgery on 28 January.