Ricky’s preview and picks for the ATP 250 in Winston-Salem

The U.S. Open is one week away. That’s right; the 2024 Grand Slam season is just about over.

However, it–and a busy summer headlined in part by the Paris Olympics–is not over yet. Cincinnati is still going on and then the Winston-Salem Open will take place before the festivities at Flushing Meadows kick off on August 26.

Here is my preview and my picks for Winston-Salem.

Winston-Salem Open

Where: Winston-Salem, North Carolina 
Surface: Hard 
Top seed: Sebastian Baez 
Defending champion: Sebastian Baez

When you have a 250-point event the week directly preceding a major, it’s generally harder to predict that any other scenario. Many players lack motivation with a Grand Slam on the immediate horizon. In other words, expect the unexpected.

Sebastian Baez is the No. 1 seed and defending champion, but he is generally not at his best on hard courts (contrary to what last year’s result in Winston-Salem would suggest, of course). There is no way he can be considered the favorite in Winston-Salem. Francisco Cerundolo may be able to take advantage in a relatively weak top half of the draw.

The bottom half of the bracket is more difficult on paper even though No. 2 seed Jack Draper is out. Among the contenders are Tomas Martin Etcheverry, Alex Michelsen, Pablo Carreno Busta, Reilly Opelka, and Chris Eubanks. Michelsen’s summer already includes a runner-up effort on the grass courts of Newport and a quarterfinal performance in Washington, D.C. Carreno Busta is finally back from an elbow injury and played well at the Cincinnati Masters, upsetting D.C. champion Sebastian Korda and taking out Max Purcell before succumbing to Alexander Zverev.

Quarterfinal picks: Arthur Rinderknech over Sebastian Baez, Francisco Cerundolo over Jerry Shang, Pablo Carreno Busta over James Duckworth, and Alex Michelsen over Adam Walton

Semifinals: Cerundolo over Rinderknech and Michelsen over Carreno Busta

Final: Michelsen over Cerundolo

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