The draw for the 2024 Vienna Open, which will mark the last tournament of Dominic Thiem's tennis career, has been revealed.
The ATP 500 tournament in Vienna is the last tournament of such a category of the season. From October 21st to 27th, it runs alongside another ATP 500 event, the Swiss Indoors in Basel.
These two tournaments attract plenty of high-ranked players every year thanks to their position in the calendar, as it's part of the season when players are still fighting for the remaining spots at the ATP Finals, and 500 points for winning this event could prove very valuable.
This tournament, however, will be special also for a different reason. Dominic Thiem will retire at the 2024 Vienna Open, and there probably isn't a better place for him to do it than his hometown.
The Austrian player started his tennis career at the event, when he was given a wild card into the tournament's qualifying in 2010, still as a teenager, and then also into the main draw in 2011 and 2012.
Thiem then won the tournament in 2019, beating Diego Schwartzman in the final, and in 2024, he will retire at the tournament. He will hope that won't happen already in the first round, but, of course, Luciano Darderi will have a different opinion.
Should the 2020 US Open champion beat Darderi in the first round, his second-round opponent would be the winner of the match between the seventh-seeded Jack Draper and Kei Nishikori. In the quarter-finals, the Austrian player could face either the third-seeded Grigor Dimitrov or Zhizhen Zhang, who will meet in the first round.
But the rest of the draw is interesting as well. Alexander Zverev is the top seed at the event, and he's also one of the former champions, having won the tournament back in 2021.
This year, he will start against one of the home wild cards, Joel Schwaerzler, before a possible second-round match with one of the two American players, Alex Michelsen or Marcos Giron.
On the opposite side of the draw is the second-seeded Alex de Minaur, who is one of those players trying to earn a qualification spot for the ATP Finals. His first-round opponent in Vienna will be Jan Lennard Struff.
Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe will be hoping for a late surge in the ATP Race as well, but their draws are incredibly difficult. Tiafoe will start against Cameron Norrie, and in the second round, he can play against Matteo Berrettini.
On the other hand, Paul will start against compatriot Brandon Nakashima, and the winner of this match might take on Karen Khachanov already in round two. The winners of these two parts will then meet in the quarter-finals.
2024 Vienna Open ATP Draw:
| Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|
| Alexander Zverev [1] | Joel Schwärzler [WC] |
| Alex Michelsen | Marcos Giron |
| Qualifier | Gael Monfils |
| Lorenzo Sonego | Lorenzo Musetti [6] |
| Grigor Dimitrov [3] | Zhizhen Zhang |
| Tomas Machac | Fabian Marozsan |
| Dominic Thiem [WC] | Luciano Darderi |
| Kei Nishikori [WC] | Jack Draper [7] |
| Frances Tiafoe [5] | Cameron Norrie |
| Qualifier | Matteo Berrettini |
| Karen Khachanov | Qualifier |
| Brandon Nakashima | Tommy Paul [4] |
| Alexei Popyrin [8] | Qualifier |
| Miomir Kecmanovic | Mariano Navone |
| Flavio Cobolli | Alejandro Davidovich Fokina |
| Jan-Lennard Struff | Alex de Minaur [2] |
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