Dubai Draw Announced; Djokovic, Wawrinka, Berdych Headline

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will begin his quest for a fifth title at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships against Tommy Robredo. He leads Robredo 6-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, but the Spaniard won their last meeting at 2014 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Cincinnati.

Djokovic has a 35-5 record at the Dubai Tennis Stadium, where he lifted his fourth trophy in 2013. A winner of his past 15 matches, the Serbian has already won two titles this year in Doha (d. Nadal) and the Australian Open (d. Murray). Djokovic may meet sixth seed Feliciano Lopez or Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the quarter-finals, with a potential semi-final clash against fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut, who has also won two titles in 2016. Bautista Agut opens his campaign against Simone Bolelli, with fifth seed Viktor Troicki squaring off in the Marcos Baghdatis in the top half.

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Playing in Dubai for the first time in eight years, World No. 5 Stan Wawrinka will face a familiar foe, Sergiy Stakhovsky, in his opener. The second seed saved two match points to scrap past the Ukrainian 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(8) in the Marseille second round earlier this week. Wawrinka lost to Roger Federer on his 2006 debut in Dubai and two years later fell to Jan Hernych in the first round, so will be hoping to record his first victory in the United Arab Emirates. Eighth seed Philipp Kohlschreiber, a 2014 semi-finalist (l. to Berdych), could be a quarter-final opponent for Wawrinka, but he must first beat wild card Marsel Ilhan, then get the better of Borna Coric, who beat Andy Murray en route to last year’s semi-finals, or Jiri Vesely in the second round.

World No. 8 Tomas Berdych, the 2013 (l. to Djokovic) and 2014 (l. to Federer) runner-up, will be aiming to improve on his 7-2 start to 2016 when the third seed takes on Joao Sousa in the first round. In another intriguing first round match, seventh seed and recent Rotterdam titlist Martin Klizan plays Nick Kyrgios.

Doubles Draw Loaded

Top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau, who have an 11-3 record in tour-level finals, headline the doubles field, which includes second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea and third seeds Vasek Pospisil and Nenad Zimonjic.

Bopanna will be attempting to capture his fourth Dubai title with as many partners, having partnered Mahesh Bhupathi to the 2012 crown, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in 2014 and Daniel Nestor in 2015. Bhupathi, a four-time champion, is playing with Qureshi in this year’s draw.