The first ATP event of the South American clay season gets under way in Quito this week, with a number of South American based players looking to gain some ATP points.
6’11 Ivo Karlovic, is the top seed, at No.19. The Croat is normally more successful on fast hard and grass courts, but has had success on clay occasionally, having won the US Men’s Clay Court Championships back in 2007. American clay is considered very different from the European and South American version, though, with the American variant considered far quicker than the norm.
More typical clay experts also litter the draw. Albert Ramos-Vinolas is in the bottom half of the draw, and is joined by third seed Paolo Lorenzi.
Thomaz Belllucci is the fourth seed, and is in the same section of the draw as top seed Karlovic. Defending champion Victor Estrella Burgos made headlines when he won the event in 2015, and followed it with a second consecutive title in 2016. He is successful at this event, but is unseeded, starting against Andrej Martin before a potential meeting with Karlovic in the second round.
Eighth seed Renzo Olivo can look at the time between the 2016 event and this year’s championships very fondly. The Argentinian needed to qualify for this event in 2016, but is now seeded this time around.
Karlovic, Ramos-Vinolas, Lorenzi, and Bellucci all benefit from byes in the first round as the top four seeds.
ATP Quito Draw (with picks in bold):
(1) Ivo Karlovic – Bye
Andrej Martin vs Victor Estrella Burgos
Joao Souza vs (Q) Federico Gaio
Gerald Melzer vs (6) Horacio Zeballos
(4) Thomaz Bellucci – Bye
Daniel Gimeno-Traver vs (WC) Janko Tipsarevic
Benjamin Becker vs Santiago Giraldo
(WC) Emilio Gomez vs (8) Renzo Olivo
(5) Alexandr Dolgopolov vs Rajeev Ram
Nicolas Kicker vs Guido Andreozzi
(Q) Agustin Velotti vs (PR) Matthew Ebden
Bye – (3) Paolo Lorenzi
(7) Thiago Monteiro vs Giovanni Lapentti
(Q) Roberto Carballes Baena vs Rogerio Dutra Silva
(Q) Alejandro Falla vs Alessandro Giannessi
Bye – (2) Albert Ramos-Vinolas
- I personally like the chances of Thiago Monteiro. The young Brazilian has some very good wins on this surface including over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and is certainly a dark horse to do well.
