ATP 500 - Halle Tournament

The following are the seeds in the said tournament:-

1    Danill Medvedev

2    Stefanos Tsitsipas

3    Andre Rublev 

4    Felix Augur-Aliassime

5    Hubert Hurkacz

6    Pablo Carrero-Busta

7    Roberto Bautista-Agut

8    Karen Khachanov

It entails a lot of time to update the results in tennis tournaments and this week I willl only deal with the Halle Tournament.   The London tournament is regarded as a Exhibition tournament and is not counting anything to rankings and I shall not deal with that one at all.   

 Rublev slipped and got injured during the first set and afterwars he had difficulty in serving.   in the game.    Although he kept on playing he did not recover from the injury and as a result lost the match.   

ROUND 2 

Top Half of the Draw  

1    Danill Medvedev/David Goffin         vs      Ilya Ivashka

7    Roberto Bautista Agut                       vs       Tallon Briekspoor

Nikoloz  Basilashvili                                vs       Oscar Otte

8     Karen Khachanov                             vs        Laslo Djere

Bottom Half of the Draw

5     Hubert Hurkacz                                  vs       Ugo Humbert

4     Felix Auger-Aliassime                       vs       Mackenzie McDonald

6     Pablo Carrero-Busta                           vs       Sebastian Korda

2    Stefanos Tsitsipas                               vs        Nic Kyrgios     

In the past after Rolland Garros  the main players decided normally to play in one or more of the following grass court tournaments namely\

Hertogenbosch, Stittgart, Halle and London. =previously known as the Queens Tournament,   That was always the case with Federer who preferred the Halle torunament and Djokovic as well as Nadal.

However, the expected candidates - especially  Djokovc, Nadal and Alcaraz  did not play in Hertogenboch and Stuttgart  and did not accept nomination for the London and Halle Tournaments

The problem is the London Tournament has been changed into an Exhibition tournament - same as the Wimbledon Tournament.  The  question is not who is turning up to play at the London tournament - it is who will end up playing in the Wimbledon Exhibition series.    For instance Nadal is going to lose no points in the case of Wimbledon - where the big losers in ranking points are  Djokovic (2 000 points) and Berrettini (1300  points). 

I think players like Djokovic, Nadal and Alcaraz would rather skip the grass court season and go to the USA to take part in the upcoming hard court events than go to play in Ex hibition matches in London.         

QUARTERFINALS

Top Half of the Draw  

1    Danill Medvedev                               vs      6   Roberto Bautista Agut

8     Karen Khachanov                             vs       Oscar Otte

Bottom Half of the Draw

4     Felix Auger-Aliassime                     vs       5     Hubert Hurkacz

6     Pablo Carrero-Busta                         vs       Nic Kyrgios

A weird da y at tennis.   The players all nder=perform and most gmes went to 3 setters.  Players like Hurkacz and Tsitsipas barely managed to win.

The injury to Rublev must have been fairly serious - he was supposed to play in a doubles match with Ivashka yesterday and the match was cancelled due to his withdrawal.

SEMIFINALS

1    Danill Medvedev                                vs        Oscar Otte

5   Herbert Hurkacz                                   vs        Nic Kyrgios

FINAL

1    Danill Medvedev               vs         5   Herbert Hurkacz