The draw for the men’s and women’s categories for the
upcoming
Rome Open finally took place on Monday. Just like every year, fans have
been waiting to see which players will face whom towards the business
end of the competition.
In the men’s singles category, the projected quarterfinal
lineup could feature the likes of Norway’s
Casper Ruud facing Serbia’s Novak
Djokovic, Germany’s Alexander Zverev facing Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, Rublev
going up against Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas and current world number four Daniil
Medvedev facing Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz. This year, Medvedev will be defending
his title in Rome, which he won in 2023 after defeating Denmark’s Holger Rune in
the final with a score of 7-5, 7-5.
The hype around the tournament has already been marred mainly
because of the absence of some notable players, including the likes of home favourite
Jannik Sinner and the current world number three Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. The
current world number two and the reigning Australian Open champion Sinner
announced in a post on the social media platform X — previously known as
Twitter — that he will not take part in the event to recover from a hip injury.
On the other hand, Alcaraz announced that he would skip the tournament after again feeling pain in his forearm during the Madrid Open quarterfinal
defeat to Russia’s Andrey Rublev. Besides these two, three more players have
withdrawn from the mega-event, including Britain’s Andy Murray, Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta, and France’s Arthur Cazaux.