Scouting Report: Top Stars Descend On Geneva And Lyon

10 THINGS TO WATCH IN GENEVA

1) ATP Back in Geneva: The Banque Eric Sturdza Geneva Open returns for the third straight year with 2016 champion Stan Wawrinka and fellow Top 10 player Kei Nishikori leading the field. Switzerland hosts three ATP events, with Gstaad (July 24-30) and Basel (October 23-29) to follow.

2) Top 4 Seeds: Receiving first-round byes are World No. 3 Wawrinka, World No. 9 Nishikori, Monte-Carlo finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas and Rome semi-finalist John Isner. Nishikori accepted a wild card into Geneva after falling to Juan Martin del Potro in the Rome third round on Thursday.

3) Stan the Man: Wawrinka is the No. 1 Swiss, No. 1 seed and reigning champion. The 32-year-old enters the week before Roland Garros without a title for the first time since 2012. Wawrinka is 16-8 in 2017 (2-3 on clay) and his best finish is a final at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Indian Wells (l. to Federer). He defeated Marin Cilic 64 76(11) in last year’s Geneva final for his first ATP title in Switzerland.

4) Ramos-Vinolas on the Rise: Ramos-Vinolas, the No. 2 seed, has 18 clay-court wins in 2017, one shy of the 19 he posted in 2016. The Spaniard peaked at No. 17 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on May 8, having reached the quarter-finals or better at eight tournaments this season (seven on clay). He was runner-up at the Masters 1000 event in Monte-Carlo (l. to Nadal) and also in Sao Paulo (l. to Cuevas).

5) Bellucci Already Out: Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci, the 2015 Geneva champion, was eliminated on Sunday by Andrey Kuznetsov. Three of Bellucci’s four ATP World Tour singles titles had come on Swiss clay: 2009 Gstaad (d. A. Beck), 2012 Gstaad (d. Tipsarevic) and 2015 Geneva (d. Sousa).

6) Johnson Returns: No. 5 seed Steve Johnson returns to the ATP World Tour for the first time since capturing his second career ATP World Tour title at Houston on April 16 (d. Bellucci). His father, Steve Johnson Sr., passed away unexpectedly on May 11 at the family’s home in California.

7) Tipsarevic Turnaround: Wild card and former World No. 8 Janko Tipsarevic is playing in his first ATP World Tour event since clay-court tournaments at Quito, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in February. The 32-year-old Serbian has jumped from No. 145 to No. 61 in the Emirates ATP Rankings this season by posting a 20-0 record with four titles on the ATP Challenger Tour (2 clay, 2 hard).

8) American Quartet: Four Americans are seeded: No. 4 Isner, No. 5 Johnson, No. 6 Sam Querrey and No. 9 Ryan Harrison. Johnson (Houston), Querrey (Acapulco) and Harrison (Memphis) have won titles in 2017. Americans are 4-0 in finals this season, not including Jack Sock’s win via walkover in the Delray Beach championship match. Sock also won the Auckland title (d. Sousa).

9) #NextGenATP Watch: Two Next Gen ATP Finals contenders are in the field: Jared Donaldson, 20, and Daniel Altmaier, 18, who qualified and makes his ATP main draw debut against Querrey.

10) Doubles Field: As is the case in singles, the doubles draw features the 2015 and 2016 Geneva champions. Defending champions Johnson and Querrey are teaming for the first time this season. Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, the 2015 champions, are the No. 2 seeds.

10 THINGS TO WATCH IN LYON

1) Lyon Returns to ATP World Tour: The Open Parc Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Lyon replaces the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur this week as an ATP World Tour 250 clay-court tournament. Lyon previously hosted an ATP event on indoor carpet from 1987 to 2008 and on indoor hard courts in 2009. That event moved to Montpellier in 2010 and is now known as the Open Sud de France.

2) Strong Field: Four Top 20 players will receive first-round byes: World No. 6 Milos Raonic, No. 1 Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, wild card Tomas Berdych and 22-year-old Nick Kyrgios.

3) Raonic Top Seed: Raonic is playing for the fourth straight week since returning from a right leg injury. He is 6-3 on clay this month, highlighted by his first final on the surface at Istanbul (l. to Cilic).

4) Tsonga on Home Soil: The second-seeded Tsonga is 18-5 with two titles this season, but just 1-1 on clay. He conceded a walkover in the Madrid second round, then withdrew from Rome, due to a right shoulder injury. Tsonga has won seven of his 14 ATP World Tour singles titles in France.

5) Kyrgios Back in Action: Like Tsonga, the fourth-seeded Kyrgios is 18-5 in 2017 and returns to action after withdrawing from Rome (hip). Kyrgios reached the Mutua Madrid Open third round in his only other clay-court appearance of the season (l. to eventual champion Nadal).

6) #NextGenATP Watch: Four of the Top 10 players in the Emirates ATP Race to Milan are in Lyon this week, including Chennai finalist Daniil Medvedev, Munich semi-finalist Hyeon Chung and Barcelona quarter-finalist Karen Khachanov. Borna Coric, who is No. 2 in the race, was eliminated on Sunday by Nikoloz Basilashvili. Rome champion Alexander Zverev leads the race.

7) Kokkinakis Returns: Thanasi Kokkinakis, a #NextGenATP player when the campaign debuted at 2016 Indian Wells, returns to the ATP World Tour this week. Kokkinakis peaked at No. 69 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, but right shoulder surgery and an abdominal strain have limited him to three tournaments at any level since October 2015: 2016 Rio Olympics (singles 1R), 2017 Brisbane (doubles champion w/Thompson) and 2017 Bordeaux, France Challenger (doubles QF w/Bolt).

8) French Title Hopes: Tsonga is one of three Frenchmen left in the field after No. 8 seed Benoit Paire was upset on Sunday. No. 5 seed Gilles Simon and Nicolas Mahut are also playing in Lyon.

9) Wild Cards: Berdych, Simon and Juan Martin del Potro are among the Top 6 seeds after accepting wild cards. Del Potro, the No. 6 seed, is 10-5 this year with all five of his losses coming to players ranked in the Top 6. He could meet the sixth-ranked Raonic in the Lyon quarter-finals.

10) Dodig/Granollers Headline Doubles: Ivan Dodig and Marcel Granollers, a first-year team, are the No. 1 doubles seeds. The Croat and Spaniard are 14-8 this season with a title at Rotterdam and runner-up finish last week at Rome. Also in the field are Paire and his 32-year-old brother Thomas Paire. The Paires previously played doubles together at two ITF Futures Circuit events in 2009-10.