The 2024 Chengdu Open will start untraditionally on Wednesday, September 18th, and the draw for the ATP 250 event has been released.
The tournament in Chengdu is an ATP 250 event. However, it still usually draws a decent field as players want to get acclimated to the conditions in Asia ahead of the Asian hard-court swing, which also features an ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Shanghai.
The courts at the event in Chengdu play quite fast, quite specifically due to the elevation, so big servers are naturally drawn to it, which is why Alexander Bublik will be among the top favorites this year.
He's not the top seed at the event because that's Lorenzo Musetti, and the Italian will hope to get to that trophy, which went to Alexander Zverev last year. The German is the defending champion, but he didn't sign up for the tournament, so the top seed is Lorenzo Musetti.
As the top seed, he has a first-round bye but will face either Pavel Kotov or Christopher O'Connell in the second round. Both of them are solid players, so that won't be the easiest match to contest for the Italian.
Further down the line, he might face Adrian Mannarino, who is a solid player but not enjoying the best season. If he moves past that quarter-final matchup, he might face either Lorenzo Sonego or Nicolas Jarry, as those two are the top seeds in the lower half of his side of the draw.
They are by far the strongest players in that quarter of the draw, with no notable names there to challenge them. On the other side of the draw, Alexander Bublik is the highest-ranked player as the second seed.
He will have a first-round bye as well, and he has a really tricky quarter. Besides having last year's finalist Roman Safiullin in there, there is also Kei Nishikori, who has a tough draw. He's facing native player Jerry Shang in the opening round, and Shang has played well this year.
It wouldn't be shocking if Shang is the player that comes out of that quarter due to how unpredictable Bublik can be at times.
The other quarter of this side of the draw has some solid players, such as Pedro Martinez and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, but also the likes of Borna Coric and Aleksandar Vukic.
Jerry Shang, if he can get past Nishikori, could have a good time in Chengdu, and some good serves like Coric and Safiullin should do well, considering the elevation at the event is around 500 meters (1,640 ft), so the balls will fly quickly through the air. The full draw for the 2024 Chengdu Open can be viewed below.
| Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|
| Lorenzo Musetti [1] | BYE |
| Pavel Kotov | Christopher O'Connell |
| Yi Zhou | Chun-Hsin Tseng |
| Qualifier | Adrian Mannarino [5] |
| Nicolas Jarry [3] | BYE |
| Adam Walton | Lukas Klein |
| Qualifier | Aleksandar Kovacevic |
| Taro Daniel | Lorenzo Sonego [6] |
| Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard [7] | Sun Fajing |
| Yannick Hanfmann | Qualifier |
| Aleksandar Vukic | Borna Coric |
| BYE | Pedro Martinez [4] |
| Roman Safiullin [8] | Fabio Fognini |
| Juncheng Shang | Kei Nishikori |
| Alexandre Muller | Qualifier |
| BYE | Alexander Bublik [2] |