The ATP Challenger Tour is back in action next week, with three tournaments starting the new season in 2017.
Noumea: The top seed is Adrian Mannarino, who returns to the tournament he used as his starting point for the 2016 season. The World No.60, who is also the defending champion has World No. 756 Aleksandar Vukic as his first assignment.
Seeds first-round matches (descending down the draw, picks in bold).
(1) Adrian Mannarino vs Aleksandar Vukic
Jose Hernandez-Fernandez vs (5) Kenny de Schepper
(3) Duckhee Lee vs Cameron Norrie
Tristan Lamasine vs (6) Dennis Novikov
(8) Mathias Bourgue vs Mitchell Krueger
Romian Bosquet vs (4) Quentin Halys
(7) Stefano Napolitano vs Adrian Menendez-Maceiras
Jake Delaney vs (2) Roberto Carballes-Baena.
Look out for: Noah Rubin who started strongly at last year’s Australian Open, only to be curtailed by injury through much of 2016 is in the draw, as is young Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. Alejandro Falla is under pressure with a weak ranking and is defending finalist points from this event last year.
Happy Valley: Top seed Donald Young will be looking to arrest a ranking slide by winning in Happy Valley. Defending champion Taylor Fritz is absent from this year’s draw, as is last year’s finalist Dudi Sela.
Seeds first round matches (descending through the draw, picks in bold).
(1) Donald Young vs Rueben Bemelmans
Michael Mmoh vs (7) Grega Zemlja
(3) Denis Kudla vs Uladzimir Ignatik
Alexander Sarkissian vs (6) Darian King
(5) Norbert Gombos vs Omar Jasika
Marc Polmans vs (4) Peter Polansky
(8) Marton Fucsovics vs Marcelo Arevalo
Matthias Bachinger vs (2) Joao Souza
Bangkok: Yuichi Sugita features as the top seed in Bangkok, with former Top 10 star Janko Tipsarevic also in action.
Seeds first round matches (descending through the draw, picks in bold).
(1) Yuichi Sugita vs Qualifier
Chayanon Kaewsuto vs (6) Di Wu
(4) Henri Laaksonen vs Sekou Bangoura
Qualifier vs (5) Janko Tipsarevic
(7) Maximillian Marterer vs Qualifier
Warit Sornbutnark vs (3) Marius Copil
(8) Yannik Reuter vs Blaz Kavcic
Congsup Congcar vs (2) Denis Istomin
My pick for the title: Henri Laaksonen
