The third American Challenger of 2017 is underway in San Francisco, and we preview the tournament that features a number of NextGen stars hoping to qualify for the inaugural NextGen finals in Milan at the end of the season.
The San Francisco Challenger is a new addition to the circuit, making it’s first appearance in the tennis calendar.
Frances Tiafoe is the top seed, and he faces wildcard Bradley Klahn. Klahn is a wildcard in every sense of the word, having impressed since making his comeback after nearly two years away from the game in October 2016. Some tough wins, and a respectable display in Australian Open qualifying suggest the former Top 100 player is not someone to be dismissed lightly in the draw.
Tiafoe is joined by fellow NextGen hopeful Taylor Fritz. The nineteen year-old had a rather indifferent start to the year, with a first round exit at the Australian Open to Sydney winner Gilles Muller. He rebounded well though to make it to the final of the Dallas Challenger last week, where he fell to top seed Ryan Harrison. Harrison, who moved up to No.62 in the ATP rankings, does not feature in San Francisco.
Elias Ymer, fourth seed Jared Donaldson, and Reilly Opelka are all other players in the draw who could be credited with an interest in NextGen stakes this season.
San Francisco preview (Picks in bold):
(1) Frances Tiafoe vs Bradley Klahn
(WC) Ryan Shane vs Salvatore Caruso
Sekou Bangoura vs Reilly Opelka
Marco Trungelliti vs (7) Vasek Pospisil
(3) Mikhail Kukushkin vs Nikola Milojevic
Michael Mmoh vs Tennys Sandgren
Mackenzie McDonald vs Kimmer Coppejans
Qualifier vs (8) Denis Kudla
(6) Henri Laaksonen vs Matthew Barton
(WC) Ramkumar Ramanathan vs (WC) Marcos Giron
Tim Smyczek vs Qualifier
John-Patrick Smith vs (4) Jared Donaldson
(6) Peter Polansky vs Dennis Novikov
Tatsuma Ito vs Darian King
Elias Ymer vs Qualifier
Qualifier vs (2) Taylor Fritz
- Matches where qualifiers are yet to be determined have not been selected.
- My pick of Bradley Klahn to edge top seed Frances Tiafoe stems largely from Tiafoe’s injury last week. He injured his arm during his match with Denis Kudla in the Dallas quarter-finals, and subsequently retired from the doubles where he was due to play with Ryan Harrison. The question remains as to just how much that might trouble him in San Francisco.
- The same applies to Vasek Pospisil, who was obviously troubled by a knee injury in the Davis Cup. Despite winning two rubbers in a valiant defeat, the Canadian might struggle with the knee in San Francisco, though I have a feeling that he might well retire ahead of the match with Marco Trungelliti.
- Third seed Mikhail Kukushkin continues to struggle in 2017, so I have selected Nikola Milojevic as my pick for that match-up.
