The 2016 edition of the 13 Open – the ATP Tour stop in Marseille, France – gets underway next week. The 250-point event comes two full weeks after the Australian Open, so a number of players are rested enough to go after this tournament, which is an indoor hardcourt event.
The competition in the 28-player main draw began on Monday, February 15.
Event Details
Event: Open 13 Provence
Category: ATP World Tour – 250 Series
Date: February 15 – February 21, 2016
Location: Palais des Sports – Marseille, France
With a prize money allotment of $44 million, there will be a
The points structure under the ATP system is that the championship means 250 points. A runner-up finish is worth 150. A semifinal result is 90 points, and a quarterfinal appearance offers 45 points.
Former Champions and Results (5 Years)
Year Champion Runner-up Score
2015 – Gilles Simon d. Gael Monfils – 6-4, 1-6, 7-6
2014 – Ernests Gulbis def. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – 7-6, 6-4
2013 – Jo-wilfried Tsonga def. Tomas Berdych – 3-6, 7-6, 6-4
2012 – Juan Martin del Potro def. Michael Llodra – 6-4, 6-4
2011 – Robin Soderling def. Marin Cilic – 6-7, 6-3, 6-3
Player Info:
It’s a very attractive main-draw field in Marseille, not counting wild cards and qualifiers who have yet to make the playing field. The headliners are Tomas Berdych and Stan Wawrinka, who will be the top two seeds and land on opposite sides of the draw. The other really big arrival is 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic, who wants to improve upon an Australian Open in which he didn’t even get out of the first week. A top-20 lurker, David Goffin, is in the field. The other player who might get a lot of attention, Nick Kyrgios, will bring his booming serve and bad manners to France. Will the crowd regard him as a refreshingly honest person, or someone who was so villainous throughout 2015 that he doesn’t deserve support early this year? Kyrgios is a pretty big deal for this tournament and its directors, but other players in the field should also gain some analysis and respect: Feliciano Lopez made the U.S. Open quarterfinals. Gael Monfils is almost always a threat, even though he usually self-sabotages his efforts. Benoit Paire can put together very good tennis when he wants to – he just doesn’t do so often enough, Gilles Simon forced Novak Djokovic to play five sets in the Australian Open, so that speaks for his ability to compete.
Palais des Sports
The 2016 staging of the 13 Open Provence will occur in the featured center court of the Palais des Sports. The central arena for the tournament opened in December of 1988. It’s a cozy little environment, a 5,800-seat arena in which the crowd is comfortably tucked around the court, right on top of the action. Some tournaments have a feel in which the crowd is distant from the action, but that’s not the case in Marseille. The French crowds normally have a lot of French players to cheer for, so the intimacy is part of the expectation that Frenchmen will at least make the semifinals if not something beyond that.
2016 Confirmed Contestants
While there are still a couple of ATP events still ongoing, we do know who a number of the players will be at the 13 Open. We’ll see five of the world’s Top 15 players with Stan Wawrinka as being the top draw as of right now. He is currently the world’s No. 4 ranked player. Aside from him, we’re going to see No. 8 Tomas Berdych and No. 13 Marin Cilic. The two top-ranked Frenchmen at the event will be No. 10 Richard Gasquet and No. 15 Gilles Simon. Both are going to get roaring support from the audience every time they play because the even is being held in their home country. Two other Frenchmen who are ranked 21st or better will be at the 13 Open too. No. 17 seed Gael Monfils, who always seems to deliver entertaining matches, will be a contestant, as will No. 21 seed Paire Benoit. The other confirmed players that we know about so far are No. 16 David Goffin, No. 22 Feliciano Lopez and No. 38 Boma Coric. France has a number of contenders in this tournament and a lot of people in the audience will be disappointed if one of their own fails to win it all.
