A pair of Masters 1000 tournaments (Montreal and Cincinnati) have come and gone. The first week of the U.S. Open starts on Monday, headlined by singles qualifying and the mixed doubles tournament.
That means the Winston-Salem Open can be overlooked. But that really shouldn’t be the case, because it is one of the strongest ATP 250 events on the annual tennis calendar. A field of 48 players (16 byes) includes Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tomas Machac, Lorenzo Sonego, Luciano Darderi, and Botic van de Zandschulp. Medvedev, the top seed, was a late entry as he seeks matches — and confidence — in advance of the year’s final major in New York. Tsitsipas is starting to find some form following a poor first half of 2026, while Machac is playing for just the second time since Roland Garros.
As is always the case in a week before a Grand Slam, anything can happen in Winston-Salem. After all, you can never be sure of any player’s motivation level when a slam is on the immediate horizon. Medvedev and Tsitsipas are on a collision course for the semis in the top half of the bracket, but neither one is any kind of lock to make it that far. Sonego, the 2024 Winston-Salem winner, could capitalize if Medvedev bows out early. As for Tsitsipas, he could have a difficult opening match on his hands against tricky American Jenson Brooksby.
With both Medvedev and Tsitsipas in the top half, the other side of the draw is especially wide open. Darderi is by no means at his best on hard courts, and a whole host of other seeded entrants are borderline clay-court specialists. This should be a prime opportunity for Van de Zandschulp, Quentin Halys, or Mattia Bellucci.
Quarterfinal predictions: Lorenzo Sonego over Fabian Marozsan, Stefanos Tsitsipas over Dino Prizmic, Marcos Giron over Adam Walton, and Botic van de Zandschulp over Quentin Halys
Semifinals: Tsitsipas over Sonego and Van de Zandschulp over Giron
Final: Van de Zandschulp over Tsitsipas
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.