Scouting Report: Los Cabos Welcomes The ATP World Tour

Aug072016

An executive summary of what every fan should know about the coming week on the ATP World Tour

Abierto Mexicano Los Cabos (Los Cabos): The second of two Mexican tournaments on the ATP World Tour, the Abierto Mexicano Los Cabos, features nine of the Top 50 players in the Emirates ATP Rankings. The other stop is in Acapulco. The first-year tournament is led by No. 19 Feliciano Lopez and No. 20 Bernard Tomic. The other seeds are: Ivo Karlovic, Sam Querrey, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Jeremy Chardy, Nicolas Almagro and Marcel Granollers.

Feliciano Top Seed: Lopez is the top seed for the second straight tournament. Last month in Gstaad, the 34-year-old Spaniard came in as the No. 1 seed and won his fifth career ATP World Tour title (d. Haase), the first on clay. Lopez comes in with a 21-16 match record on the season (8-6 on hard). In addition to his title, Lopez advanced to the semi-finals in Dubai and Houston.

Tomic Back in Mexico: Tomic is the No. 2 seed and in February the 23-year-old Aussie advanced to his first ATP World Tour 500 level final in Acapulco (l. to Thiem). Tomic comes in with a 25-18 match record on the season (15-8 on hard). He also advanced to the semi-finals in Brisbane and The Queen’s Club in London.

Ivo Going Strong: Karlovic is the No. 3 seed and the 37-year-old Croat is the oldest player in the Top 100 Emirates ATP Rankings at No. 26. Last month, Karlovic captured his seventh ATP World Tour title in Newport (d. Muller) and he followed with a runner-up in Washington (l. to Monfils). He also reached the third round at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Toronto (l. to Dimitrov). Karlovic was bothered by a knee injury in the first three months of the year, starting 2-9. Since the beginning of Roland Garros, Karlovic has compiled a 16-6 record, winning at least one match in his last seven events.

Spaniards Lead the Way: There are a tournament-high six Spaniards in the main draw, including seeds (1) Lopez, (7) Almagro and (8) Granollers. Three of the six Spaniards to win an ATP World Tour title this season are also in the draw: Almagro, Lopez and Fernando Verdasco.

Reilly on the Rise: American teenager Reilly Opelka, who advanced to his first career ATP World Tour semi-final in Atlanta (l. to Isner in three sets) in just his third ATP tournament, is a special exempt entry into Los Cabos. The 18-year-old from Palm Coast, Florida came into Atlanta ranked No. 837 and he is expected to break into the Top 400 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on Monday at around No. 387.

Local Wild Cards: Two of the three wild cards are the top two Mexican players in the Emirates ATP Rankings: No. 530 Lucas Gomez and No. 567 Tigre Hank. Both players are trying to win their first career ATP World Tour match. They are both 1-7 at tour-level, with their lone wins coming in Davis Cup play.

Doubles Draw: The top seeds in the tournament are Marcel Granollers and F. Lopez, who are teaming together for the first time since the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Indian Wells in 2011. Other seeds are: Robert Lindstedt/ Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Mate Pavic (teaming for the first time) and Pablo Carreno Busta/Andres Molteni.

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Birthdays

8 August – Roger Federer (35), Marinko Matosevic (31)

14 August – Yen-Hsun Lu (33)

Rankings Movers

+12 Yoshihito Nishioka (85)

+5 Horacio Zeballos (73)

+4 Donald Young (49)