PETE ZIEBRON
Andy Murray is seeking his first career clay court title this week in Munich. Pete Ziebron Images
This week, the week prior to back-to-back Masters 1000 tournaments, features 3 ATP 250 tournaments plus 6 ATP Challenger events being played on 4 different continents.
The strongest field of any of the 9 events this week is in Munich, where world #3 Andy Murray is seeking his first career clay court title. In addition to Murray, several impressive 1st round matches were contested, including Wild Card Janko Tipsarevic defeating #6 seed Bernard Tomic and Dominic Thiem edging Vasek Pospisil. Both matches looked attractive on paper and they did not disappoint as the victor prevailed in each in a 3rd set tiebreaker.
World #2 Roger Federer helped commemorate the inaugural Istanbul Open by entering the field as the #1 seed. Grigor Dimitrov joined Federer in the field along with two young guns, Wild Card Andrey Rublev of Russia and Australian qualifier Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Finally, the field in Estoril features youngsters Nick Kyrgios and Borna Coric, along with veterans Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Almagro, who will square off tomorrow for a berth in the quarterfinals.
Concurrent to the 2 ATP 250 events, 6 Challengers are being contested this week: 2 in Asia (Taipei and An-Ning), 2 in Europe (Turin and Ostrava) and 1 each in North and South America (Tallahassee and Sao Paulo). Some of the notable names in action this week include: Lucas Pouille in Ostrava and Yen-Hsun Lu in Taipei. Meanwhile, 39 year-old Hyung-Taik Lee advanced successfully through qualifying in An-Ning. Lee defeated Juan Carlos Ferrero to win Sydney in 2003 and also defeated Andy Roddick in that event.
This weekend, while the semifinals and finals will be contested at these 9 venues, the qualifying draw will take place for the Masters 1000 event in Madrid. Wall to wall tennis, all across the world!
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