Gael Monfils and Jan-Lennard Struff complete Diriyah Tennis Cup field
The Diriyah Tennis Cup is the first professional tennis tournament ever to be staged in Saudi Arabia, taking place between December 12-14 at the 15,000-seater Diriyah Arena in Riyadh. The event will offer $3 million, gathering Grand Slam and Masters 1000 winners for thrilling three-day action. Alongside high-quality tennis action, the organizers will try to stimulate more people to come and play tennis regularly, with no Saudi Arabian players on the ATP or WTA ranking lists. After confirming Stan Wawrinka, Daniil Medvedev, Fabio Fognini and David Goffin, the organizers continued to work hard on bringing more big names and making the draw as strong as possible, with John Isner and Lucas Pouille joining the action.
Less than ten days before the start of the tournament, an eight-man field is set with the top-10 star Gael Monfils and Jan-Lennard Struff taking the last two places in the draw. In his best season since 2016, Gael claimed almost 40 ATP wins and won the title in Rotterdam, together with the semi-final in Montreal and the quarter-final at the US Open, his best result at Majors in 2019. The Frenchman was also the semi-finalist in Sofia, Dubai and Vienna, advancing into the quarter-final at Indian Wells and Paris to wrap up the year in the top-10. In his career-best season, Struff finished in the top-35 for the first time after two semi-finals in Auckland and Stuttgart, competing in the quarter-final in Barcelona and Basel and the fourth round at Roland Garros.
"Hosting top-tier international tennis in Saudi Arabia for the very first time is another momentous sporting occasion for our country. It is hugely exciting to confirm our final line-up of world-class tennis stars from so many different countries that fans in the Kingdom cannot wait to get close to," Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, chairman of the General Sports Authority of Saudi Arabia, said.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2YgPic9
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