The qualifying draw for the Men’s Australian Open qualifying is out, and there are some interesting match-ups up and down the draw.
American loyalties may be tested as Tim Smyczek and Frances Tiafoe are scheduled to meet in the qualifying round if they win their first two matches, and the same situation faces Stefan Kozlov and Ernesto Escobedo. Top seed Radek Stepanek has the difficult Norbert Gombos in his section, whilst Julien Benneteau will face last week’s Noumea runner-up Nikola Milojevic in his first round. Fifth seed Nicolas Kicker has a tough match-up against South Korean prodigy Duckhee Lee in perhaps the pick of the first round matches. Teymuraz Gabashvili has the young Norwegian Casper Ruud, but I’m predicting a win for the veteran as Ruud’s results to date on hard courts have not the standards that he has set on clay. Bradley Klahn makes an appearance in the draw, facing thirty-first seed Thomas Fabbiano. Klahn made a few respectable runs at Challengers towards the end of last year, after nearly two years out with injuries.
Top Quarter: (Picks in bold).
(1) Radek Stepanek vs Sekou Bangoura
Matteo Donati vs Blaz Kavcic
John-Patrick Smith vs Agustin Velotti
Kenny de Schepper vs (27) Norbert Gombos
(2) Frances Tiafoe vs Marco Cecchinato
Steven Diez vs Yannick Reuter
Pedro Sousa vs Mohammed Safwat
Jordi Samper-Montana vs (25) Tim Smyczek
(3) Jozef Kovalik vs Marco Trungelliti
Peter Gojowczyk vs Saketh Myneni
Daniel Brands vs Adrian Menendez Maceiras
Ruben Bemelmans vs (29) Go Soeda
(4) Yuichi Sugita vs Marc Polmans
Max Purcell vs Andrey Rublev
Lorenzo Giustino vs Mirza Basic
Tristan Lamasine vs (22) Peter Polansky
Second Quarter:
(5) Nicolas Kicker vs Duckhee Lee
Marton Fucsovics vs Bradley Mousley
Kimmer Coppejans vs Tennys Sandgren
Alexander Bublik vs (17) Arthur De Greef
(6) Bjorn Fratangelo vs Grega Zemlja
Gavin Van Peperzeel vs Stefanos Tsitsipas
Hiroki Moriya vs Harry Bourchier
Uladzimir Ignatik vs (19) Vasek Pospisil
(7) Stefan Kozlov vs Yuki Bhambri
Pedja Krstin vs Zdenek Kolar
Daniel Masur vs Tatsuma Ito
Maximilian Marterer vs (21) Ernesto Escobedo
(8) Benjamin Becker vs Miljan Zekic
Maverick Banes vs Di Wu
Ivan Dodig vs Amir Weintraub
Laslo Djere vs (24) Andrej Martin
Third Quarter:
(9) Joao Souza vs Andre Ghem
Yuya Kibi vs Brian Baker
Elias Ymer vs Akira Santillan
Bradley Klahn vs (31) Thomas Fabbiano
(10) Lukas Lacko vs Jeremy Jahn
Enrique Lopez-Perez vs Maximo Gonzalez
Jose Hernandez-Fernandez vs Dmitry Popko
Matthew Ebden vs Andrey Golubev
Noah Rubin vs Cedrik-Marcel Stebe
Marinko Matosevic vs (32) Roberto Carballes Baena
(12) Alessandro Giannessi vs Jan Satral
Yasutaka Uchiyama vs Marko Tepavac
Federico Gaio vs Luca Vanni
Alexander Sarkissian vs (23) Henri Laaksonen
Final Quarter:
(13) Taro Daniel vs Aldin Setkic
Jurgen Melzer vs Joris De Loore
Scott Jones vs Marcelo Arevalo
Illya Ivashka vs (20) Rajeev Ram
(14) Tobias Kamke vs Dennis Novikov
Alexander Kudryavtsev vs Blake Mott
Matja Pecotic vs James McGee
Riccardo Bellotti vs (30) Vincent Millot
(15) Marius Copil vs Alex Bolt
Matthias Bachinger vs Franko Skugor
Kristjian Mesaros vs Guilherme Clezar
Nikola Milojevic vs (26) Julien Benneteau
(16) Marco Chiudinelli vs Mitchell Krueger
Reilly Opelka vs Stefano Napolitano
Mathias Bourgue vs Jonathan Eysseric
Casper Ruud vs (28) Teymuraz Gabashvili
