Two traditional 500 events on the ATP calendar this week, one in London, and the other in Halle, Germany. Roger Federer owned this tournament for a decade, taking the title 10 times. This is one of the best looking tennis stadiums on the tour (but with one of the worst on-court shadows sadly). Anyway, here is the preview for Halle.
Similarly to Queens, we have 8 of the top 18 players in the draw, including the newly crowned number 1 player, Jannik Sinner. He will start his 2024 grass court campaign against Dutchman, Tallon Griekspoor, who, having just made the semi-finals at s’Hertogenbosch, knows his way around a grass court, and is sure to pose more than a few problems for the Italian.
Should Sinner get through Griekspoor (which is no certainty in my opinion), he is likely to face Stefanos Tsitsipas, or Jan-Lennard Struff in the quarter-finals. Either of those opponents would be a massive challenge, although Tsitsipas has never looked quite as comfortable on the grass, meaning Struff could potentially find his way deep into this event.
Daniil Medvedev opens up his grass court campaign here, and will no doubt feel a little more comfortable than he does on the clay. He has a reasonable draw here, taking on Nuno Borges first up, although his likely quarter-final opponent, Alexander Bublik does enter as the reigning champion. With Bublik, no-one is ever sure which Alexander will show up, but he has shown tremendous grass court form, so I would expect him to be all-in this week.
Christopher Eubanks also lurks in this quarter, and although he’s shown zero form for about 11 months now, he has all his eggs in the grass season basket. Eubanks took out the Mallorca title last year, and a had a quarter-final appearance at Wimbledon, beating Tsitsipas, and pushing Medvedev to 5 sets. He certainly can’t be taken lightly, but would need to lift his level to match the 2023 run.
The lower half of the draw has all sorts of players who could do some damage. Andrey Rublev, Hubert Hurkacz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Alexander Zverev are the 4 seeds, and each one of them has the potential to be there on finals day. Rublev made the final here last year, but after his meltdown in Paris, it’s hard to pick him with any great certainty. Zverev is one of the best in the world, but grass is surprisingly not a surface he dominates on, which could leave it open for Hurkacz, who won this title in 2022.
There is another unseeded floater who might be the big danger though. Matteo Berrettini loves the grass, and seems to be finding some form after making the final in Stuttgart last week. He will take on Alex Michelson in round one, and then potentially Rublev and Hurkacz. Not an easy path, but he has all the weapons to do it.
I’m also excited to take a look at Brazilian young gun Joao Fonseca on the grass. I certainly don’t expect him to beat the big guns here, but if he can show some all-court game, he’ll be an exciting prospect for a number of years.
This is a tough tournament to predict, but I’ll give it a try. I can honestly see all four of my semi-final picks going out early, so if I was betting, I wouldn’t touch it.
Semi-finals:
Sinner v Medvedev
Hurkacz v Zverev
Final:
Sinner v Hurkacz
Champion: Jannik Sinner
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