The 2017 Geneva Open tournament is one of the ATP’s clay-court tour stops in Switzerland. There is a post-French Open, post-Wimbledon summer clay event in Gstaad, but that is for the clay specialists. This event is a Roland Garros warm-up, with some players who have succeeded on non-clay surfaces in their careers.
The competition in the 28-player main draw began on Sunday, May 21.
Event Details
Event: Geneva Open
Category: ATP 250 Series
Date: May 21 – 27, 2017
Location: Tennis Club de Geneve – Geneva, Switzerland
With a prize money allotment of 482,000 Euros, this tournament fits right in with the standard purse allotment of other ATP 250 events. The main attraction of this tournament is match play before Roland Garros for players who did not get enough of it in Madrid or Rome.
Points
Champion – 250
Runner-up – 150
Semifinal – 90
Quarterfinal – 45
Former Champions and Results (5 years – tournament was not on the main tour from 1992-2014)
1989 – Marc Rosset def. Guillermo Perez Roldan – 6-4, 7-5
1990 – Horst Skoff def. Sergi Bruguera – 7-6, 7-6
1991 – Thomas Muster def. Horst Skoff – 6-2, 6-4
2015 – Thomas Bellucci def. Joao Sousa – 7-6, 6-4
2016 – Stan Wawrinka def. Marin Cilic – 6-4, 7-6
Player Info:
Stan Wawrinka has lost early in every clay tournament he has entered this year. His lackluster clay season has led him to accept a wild card in Geneva. Wawrinka desperately needs some matches under his belt before going to Roland Garros. Yes, he is a big tournament player, but he is in search of confidence, and he’d like to carry some momentum to Paris. Can he rack up wins in Geneva, or will he go to France without something to lean on?
Albert Ramos-Vinolas is having a 2017 to remember. A Masters 1000 final in Monte Carlo, victory over World No. 1 Andy Murray, and a career-high ranking of No. 17 have raised his profile. The Spaniard wasn’t expected to do this well and he couldn’t have asked for more. Ramos-Vinolas is 21-14 for the season and it can get better. He is defending quarterfinal points in Paris, but before he gets there, he has a legitimate chance of adding 250 points in Switzerland.
John Isner isn’t having a season to remember but he has had couple of solid wins over Albert Ramos-Vinolas and Florian Mayer in the ongoing tournament in Rome, where he reached the semifinals and was still playing Alexander Zverev when this article was written. The field isn’t deep in Geneva, so does he have enough energy left after his busy week in Italy?
Steve Johnson is a good hardcourt player but can some damage on the dirt as well. On the red clay of Houston, Johnson beat Dustin Brown, Fernando Verdasco, Jack Sock and Thomaz Bellucci to win the ATP 250 title. The American is 15-7 on the season and is ranked 25th in the world. Johnson is not the top contender for the title but opponents can’t discount him.
There are plenty of Americans in the draw and Sam Querrey is one of them. Querrey shocked beat a bunch of in-form players–David Goffin, Dominic Thiem, Nick Kyrgios and Rafael Nadal–in Acapulco. Since then, big Sam has come back to earth and has managed to reach only one quarterfinal in Houston. Geneva will give him a great opportunity to go deep into the tournament. Will he take advantage of the weak competition?
Paolo Lorenzi had a chance to win the title in Quito but came out second best in a tightly contested final against Victor Estrella-Burgos. Lorenzi’s next best result came in Budapest, where he fell to Lucas Pouille in the semifinal. He had a decent outing in Marrakech too, where he suffered a tough loss to Jiri Vesely in the quarterfinals. Lorenzi recently competed in Istanbul, where he went down in straight sets to a 153rd- ranked Serbian named Laslo Djere in the opening round. Lorenzi is 35 and is ranked 33rd in the world. He needs to keep motivating and pushing himself to prolong his stay in the top 40. Can he push himself in Geneva after a shocking loss in Istanbul?
Tennis Club de Geneve
The club, nestled into the Swiss Alps, is the largest and oldest tennis club in Switzerland. The main stadium court holds a few thousand spectators with sideline-oriented seating, meaning that there is minimal seating room behind the baselines.
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