Americans Aim to Make Mark in Houston

American men aim to go deep on dirt in Houston next week.

The Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship released the draws for the ATP 250 tournament that takes place April 1-9 at River Oaks Country Club. 

For the second year in a row and the third time in the last four editions that there are six seeded American players in the US Clay draw. Frances Tiafoe, a 2022 US Open semifinalist and current world No. 14, headlines the 28 player singles field as the No. 1 seed. The top four seeds, who have a first-round bye, include Americans Tiafoe, Tommy Paul (No. 19), Brandon Nakashima (No. 45), and 2013 River Oaks champion John Isner (No. 46). 

J.J. Wolf (No. 50), a semifinalist in Dallas last month, is the No. 5 seed. The No. 6 seed is Jason Kubler (No. 70), who excelled on grass last season making it to semifinals in Newport and the round of 16 at Wimbledon. Marcos Giron (No. 71), the 2014 NCAA singles champion at UCLA, is the No. 7 seed and the No. 8 seed is Tomas Martin Etcheverry (No. 73), who has three Challenger titles on clay. 

There are five previous US Clay champions in this year’s draw: Isner (2013), Steve Johnson (2017, 2018), Jack Sock (2015), Fernando Verdasco (2014), and Cristian Garin (2019).

The qualifying draw was also released and includes Croatian Matija Pecotic who made headlines in February for a run at the Delray Beach Open while taking time off from his finance career. The field for the two-round qualifying also includes Brandon Holt, the son of former World No. 1 Tracy Austin. Qualifying starts at 11 a.m. and is free for fans. 

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ORDER OF PLAY
SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2023
COURT 3 start 11:00 am
[4] Zizou Bergs (Belgium) vs [WC] Zachary Svajda (United States)
[1] Yosuke Watanuki (Japan) vs [WC] Matija Pecotic (Croatia)
[2] Rinky Hijikata (Australia) vs Brandon Holt (United States)
[3] Yannick Hanfmann (Germany) vs Enzo Couacaud (France) 

COURT 7 start 11:00 am
Aleksandar Vukic (Australia) vs [6] Alejandro Tabilo (Chile)
Juncheng Shang (China) vs [8] Felipe Meligeni Alves (Brazil)
[Alt] Genaro Alberto Olivieri (Argentina) vs [5] Tomas Machac (Czech Republic)
Seong-chan Hong (Korea) vs [7] Facundo Diaz Acosta (Argentina)

DRAWS
Singles Draw
Doubles Draw
Qualifying Draw