The
schedule for Monday, May 20th, of the ATP 250
Geneva Open has been revealed,
with
Andy Murray as the main star of the day. Should he win, he would face
Novak Djokovic in an unexpected clash of Grand Slam champions. The players are
looking to get in their final matches before the start of the
French Open.
The Briton
was competing in the Bordeaux Challenger last week, but this will be his first
match in an ATP tournament since the
Miami Open. The 37-year-old Murray (No. 77)
will face Yannik Hanfmann (No. 59).
First
Round Matches at the Geneva Open
Six
first-round singles matches will be played, with 7th seed
Fabian Marozsan (No. 36)
opening the day against
Alexander Shevchenko (No. 60). They faced each other
two weeks ago in the first round of the Rome Open, where the Kazakh won
comfortably, 6-3, 6-2.
Also
noteworthy is the match between 8th seed
Jack Draper (No. 40) and the young
Tomas Machac (No. 45). The Czech was one of the surprises of the Sunshine
Double, reaching the quarterfinals of the Miami Open with victories over
players like Murray and
Andrey Rublev, but he has not achieved significant
results on clay. Draper, on the other hand, has faced early eliminations in the
four clay tournaments he has played this season, although all were against
top-15 players.
However,
the highlight of the day will be the return of Andy Murray to the courts after
two months of injury. The 3-time Grand Slam champion won their only previous
encounter against Hanfmann back at the 2023 Basel Open, on indoor hard courts.
The winner of this match will face none other than world No. 1 Novak Djokovic,
who entered the tournament at the last minute with a wild card.
![Murray_Andy_RolandGarros2016](https://r.testifier.nl/Acbs8526SDKI/resizing_type:fit/watermark:Picture%3A%20Proshots/width:1280/plain/https://s3-newsifier.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tennisuptodate.com/images/images/Murray_Andy_RolandGarros2016.jpg@webp)
Andy Murray will play his first clay-court ATP match since the 2023 Rome Open.
The Serbian
is looking to gain some momentum before defending his title at the French Open,
considering his early exit at the Rome Open and his absence in Madrid. As the
top seed, he will wait a couple of days more for his debut, although he will
surely be keeping an eye on the Murray vs. Hanfmann match. The last time
Djokovic and Murray faced each other was in the final of the 2017 Doha Open,
where Nole took the title. The head-to-head stands at 25-11 in favour of the
Serb, 5-1 on clay.
Other
matches of the day include
Emil Ruusuvuori (No. 71) against
Marcos Giron (No.
49);
Aslan Karatsev (No. 86) against
Flavio Cobolli (No. 57); and Rinky
Hijikata (No. 79) against
Sebastian Ofner (No. 46). Here you can find the
schedule for the day in Geneva: