Queen’s Club • Fever-Tree Tennis • London • Buy Seats • Ricky’s Picks

By Ricky Dimon   @Dimonator

 

Queen’s Club draw: First-round showdowns abound in singles, Andy Murray and Feliciano Draw top seeds in dubs

 

The Fever-Tree Championships draw ceremony was held on Saturday afternoon and it did not disappoint with either singles or doubles.

 

With a loaded field at this 500-point event in London, the singles draw was never going to lack intrigue regardless of what exactly happened on Saturday. But the ceremony’s proceedings produced an especially large amount of drama that will come early and often once play gets started on Monday (main draw, that is; qualifying is already well underway).

 

Among the blockbuster first-round matches are Juan Martin Del Potro vs. Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Grigor Dimitrov, top-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas against Great Britain’s own Kyle Edmund, and Stan Wawrinka vs. another British hopeful in Dan Evans.

 

“The Fever-Tree Championships has always been one of my favorite tournaments,” Dimitrov commented. “I have a special connection with everyone that works there and the crowd, and will always look back with happy memories on winning the event in 2014.”

 

Dimitrov could be facing an opponent fresh off winning an event, which Auger-Aliassime has a chance to do on Sunday in Stuttgart. The 18-year-old Canadian beat Ernests Gulbis, Gilles Simon, and Dustin Brown before getting a walkover from compatriot Milos Raonic in the semifinals.

 

Seeded eighth at Queen’s Club, Auger-Aliassime is on a collision course with the top-seeded Tsitsipas for the quarterfinals. If the seeds hold to form, other quarterfinal contests would be Del Potro vs. Raonic, Danill Medvedev vs. Marin Cilic, and Wawrinka vs. Kevin Anderson.

 

On the doubles side, Andy Murray is back from hip surgery and will take the match court for the first time since the Australian Open. Shelving his plans to retire, Murray’s return will begin in doubles with Feliciano Lopez against No. 1 seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah.

 

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.