- Ricky’s picks for this week’s ATP 500 in Rotterdam
- ABN AMRO Rotterdam Open Draw and Schedule of Play for Wednesday, February 5, 2025
- Former No. 1 Simona Halep Announces Her Retirement At Age 33
- ABN AMRO Rotterdam Open Draw and Schedule of Play for Tuesday, February 4, 2025
- Petra Kvitova Will Launch Her Comeback in Austin
- Rotterdam ATP 500 draw: Alcaraz, Medvedev, Rublev headline stacked field
- ABN AMRO Rotterdam Open Qualifying Draw and Schedule of Play for Saturday, February 1, 2025
- Taylor Fritz to Play Opening Match February 13 in Historic Delray Beach Open Three-Peat Quest
- Stars Join Forces for Eisenhower Cup Return to Indian Wells on March 4
- Ken Thomas Broadcasting from Georgia’s Rome Tennis Open
- Solinco Launches All-New Whiteout V2 Racquet
- Stringlet: Serving Up Tennis Inspiration With A Twist
- Davis Cup qualifying to feature Brazil vs. France and Spain vs. Switzerland
- 2025 US Open Expands to Sunday Start
- Tennis Channel To Broadcast U.S. Davis Cup Qualifier vs. Tawain
Ricky’s picks for the ATP 500 in Rotterdam: Rune revels is favorable draw
- Updated: February 13, 2023
The February swing heats up in a big way this week with perhaps the best 500-point tournament of the entire season. Jannik Sinner was ranked No. 17 in the world at the time of seeding (he is now 14th in Monday’s rankings) and he is not even seeded in Rotterdam. Eight of the ATP’s top 16 players are in the field, including Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev, and Daniil Medvedev.
ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament
Where: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Surface: Indoor hard
Points: 500
Prize money: 2,074,505 Euros
Top seed: Stefanos Tsitsipas
Defending champion: Felix Auger-Aliassime
The entire draw is loaded, but the bottom half is especially ridiculous. It is home to Rublev, Medvedev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Hubert Hurkacz, Roberto Bautsita Agut, Grigor Dimitrov, Alex de Minaur, Borna Coric, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Botic van de Zandschulp, and Montpellier runner-up Maxime Cressy. There are no easy matches—not even in the first round. Case in point: some of the openers are Rublev vs. De Minaur, Medvedev vs. Davidovich Fokina, Hurkacz vs. Bautista Agut, and Auger-Aliassime vs. Lorenzo Sonego.
Out of all 32 players, the only one who can say he has a legitimately “good” draw is Holger Rune. A struggling Alexander Zverev is Rune’s nearest seed and the unseeded group in that quarter of the bracket is unspectacular. The 19-year-old Dane should roll into the semifinals, at which point he could meet Tsitsipas or Sinner. A Tsitsipas-Sinner second-round showdown is likely, and it would come just four days after the Italian triumphed in Montpellier.
Quarterfinal picks: Stefanos Tsitsipas over Pablo Carreno Busta, Holger Rune over Soonwoo Kwon, Daniil Medvedev over Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Daniil Medvedev over Grigor Dimitrov
Semifinals: Rune over Tsitsipas and Medvedev over Rublev
Final: Rune over Medvedev
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.