ATP Brisbane - DRAW: Rafael Nadal and Kei Nishikori lead packed field
Starting in 2009, the Brisbane International has always gathered a great field of players and stood as one of the strongest pre-Australian Open events at the start of the season. Andy Roddick, Andy Murray, Lleyton Hewitt, Roger Federer, Milos Raonic, Grigor Dimitrov and Nick Kyrgios have all won the title in Brisbane and 2019 will be no exception, with a lot of high-quality competitors entering the draw and the title chase. Rafael Nadal will play his first official match since September when he retired against Juan Martin del Potro at the US Open, playing in Brisbane for the second time after reaching the quarters in 2017 and skipping the event due to an injury 12 months ago.
Rafa suffered a loss to Kevin Anderson at the Mubadala WTC on Friday but he will try to compete in Brisbane despite feeling some pain. Nadal will open the campaign against a qualifier or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who is currently ranked outside the top-250 and who used protected ranking to hit the main draw. The Aussie quartet of Alex Bolt, Jordan Thompson, Alexei Popyrin and the 7th seed Alex de Minaur are also in the draw and it should be interesting who will prevail and set that possible Rafa clash in the quarters. De Minaur was the semi-finalist here a year ago and he will try to go even further now, feeling motivated to challenge the players from the very top in 2019.
Daniil Medvedev and a former champion Milos Raonic lead the second quarter but they will have to work hard in order to set the quarter-final match, with the two-time champion Andy Murray trying to make a comeback and improve his ranking as soon as possible. Andy will face James Duckworth in the tricky first round match and it should be a great test for him to see where he stands at the moment. The 5th seed and the defending champion Nick Kyrgios kicks off the season in the rematch of the last year's final against Ryan Harrison, with Kyle Edmund probably waiting in the quarter-final in what should be one of the matches of the tournament.
In the bottom quarter, 2017 champion Grigor Dimitrov will try to leave 2018 season behind him as soon as possible, facing Yoshihito Nishioka in the opening match before John Millman or Tennys Sandgren clash. 2017 finalist Kei Nishikori is the 2nd seed and he will have to overcome Taylor Fritz or Denis Kudla in the second round in order to set possible Dimitrov clash in the rematch of that final encounter from two years ago. Full draw:
[1]Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs Bye [PR]Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) vs Qualifier [WC]Alex Bolt (AUS) vs Jordan Thompson (AUS) [7]Alex de Minaur (AUS) vs [WC]Alexei Popyrin (AUS)
[4]Daniil Medvedev (RUS) vs Bye [PR]Andy Murray (GBR) vs [WC]James Duckworth (AUS) Leonardo Mayer (ARG) vs Qualifier [5]Milos Raonic (CAN) vs Aljaz Bedene (SLO)
[8]Nick Kyrgios (AUS) vs Ryan Harrison (USA) Jeremy Chardy (FRA) vs Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) Qualifier vs Qualifier [3]Kyle Edmund (GBR) vs Bye
[6]Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) vs Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN) John Millman (AUS) vs Tennys Sandgren (USA) Taylor Fritz (USA) vs Denis Kudla (USA) [2]Kei Nishikori (JPN) vs Bye
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2Tm3o8D
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