Dominic Thiem gets wildcard and nightmare Austrian Open draw while Race to Turin gets intense in Vienna
Austrian tennis hero Dominic Thiem has been given a wildcard entry into the ATP 500 Austrian Open, but he has been handed a tough draw.
As a wildcard, Thiem could have faced anybody in the draw, but he’s been presented with a clash against one of the best in the world.
Thiem will start his Austrian Open bid against fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The former US Open winner might be telling himself that it could be worse for him with Tsitsipas arriving in Vienna having lost four of his last seven matches.
Tsitsipas and Thiem have evenly split their ten previous meetings on the ATP Tour, but the Greek has won the last two meetings, which came in this current season.
While Tsitsipas won their meetings in the current campaign, he was pushed to five sets by the Austrian veteran at Wimbledon and needed to win a third set tiebreaker to come out on top in Madrid.
The winner of the clash between Tsitsipas and Thiem will go on to face either Aleksandar Vukic or a qualifier in the second round.
The top seed in Vienna will be world No 3 Daniil Medvedev, who has already clinched a place at the ATP Tour finals for this season.
Medvedev opens his tournament against young Frenchman Arthur Fils as he bids to close the gap on the top two on the ATP Rankings.
The No 3 is 1450 rankings points adrift of Carlos Alcaraz and, therefore, cannot move up on the rankings this week, but he also remains totally out of reach for No 4 Jannik Sinner, who is the second seed in Vienna.
Sinner might not be terribly thrilled with the Vienna draw after being handed a first round match against Tokyo finalist Ben Shelton.
Shelton’s run to the final in Tokyo has cast some doubt over whether he will take his place in the draw for the Austrian Open given the distance he will have to travel in a short space of time.
Meanwhile, third seed Andrey Rublev can clinch his place in the ATP Tour Finals in Turin with a deep run in Vienna.
Vienna won’t wholly settle the Race to Turin, but with seeds four through eight still in contention for a place, the Austrian Open could prove pivotal.
If Shelton wins in Tokyo and makes it to the main draw in Vienna he will also have a mathematical shot at a Turin place with the man on the bubble, Holger Rune, not entered into an event this week. However, to complete the feat, Shelton will need to win both the Vienna Open and the Paris Masters that follows.
Fifth seed Alexander Zverev would move himself to the brink of a return to the Tour Finals with a run to the title in Vienna. Zverev starts his tilt against another home wildcard in Sebastian Ofner.
No Americans are currently in the top eight of the race to Turin with Taylor Fritz in ninth.
However, compatriots Tommy Paul, the No 6 seed, and Frances Tiafoe, the No 7 seed could strengthen their positions and set themselves up for a big push in Paris.
Tiafoe faces Dan Evans in a challenging first round engagement in Vienna, while Paul is scheduled to face a qualifier.
Vienna No 8 seed Karen Khachanov faces countryman Roman Safiullin to start and could also do with a deep run to set himself up for some heroics in Paris..
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