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Ricky’s Preview and Picks for the Melbourne Summer Set ATP 250: Nadal, Murray, Kyrgios in Action
- Updated: January 3, 2022

By Ricky Dimon
It’s a
new year and to say that things are new in Melbourne, Australia would be a
gross understatement.
The Melbourne Summer Set is a new ATP event, created to give players an
opportunity to warm up for the Australian Open right in Melbourne — minimizing the
demands of travel during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rafael Nadal’s early arrival
Down Under is also new, as he generally kicks off his season in Doha or just
waits until the Australian Open.
Nadal will be playing an official match for the first time since the
Washington, D.C. tour stop last summer, when a recurring foot injury ended his
2021 campaign. The 35-year-old Spaniard first started suffering from the
problem at the French Open, where he lost a semifinal thriller against Novak
Djokovic. Nadal’s status for the 2022 Australian summer remained in doubt after
he lost matches to Andy Murray and Denis Shapovalov at last month’s Mubadala
World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, but he is already practicing in
Melbourne and looks ready to go.
The top seed is joined in a strong field of 28 by Reilly Opelka, Grigor
Dimitrov, and David Goffin–the other three players with first-round byes. If
the seeds hold to form, it would be Nadal vs. Goffin and Opelka vs. Dimitrov in
the semifinals. Benoit Paire, Ilya Ivashka, Dominik Koepfer, and Mackenzie
McDonald round out the seeded contingent. Murray and Nick Kyrgios are among the
wild-card entries, while Emil Ruusuvuori got in late as an alternate to further
improve the draw.
First-round
matchups to watch include Ivashka vs. Ruusuvuori and Botic Van de Zandschulp
vs. Adrian Mannarino. Murray would run into Dimitrov in round two if the former
world No. 1 defeats Facundo Bagnis in his opening match. Kyrgios vs. Goffin
will be another intriguing second-rounder if the Aussie takes care of Alex
Molcan in his opener.
Nadal will begin his 2022 season against either Marcos Giron or a qualifier.
Check
out the full draw in PDF format on the
ATP website
Picks
Quarterfinals:
Rafael Nadal over Alexei Popyrin, Ilya Ivashka over David Goffin, Andy Murray
over Botic Van de Zandschulp, and Reilly Opelka over Kevin Anderson
Semifinals: Nadal
over Ivashka and Murray over Opelka
Final:
Murray over Nadal
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.