Top seed Dominic Thiem, who is ranked seventh in the world, will make his Citi Open debut in Washington, D.C. this week.
The 23-year-old Austrian has passed on the ATP stop in Kitzbuhel this year in order to get a jump on his hard court season preparation. The Generali Open in his home country is played on clay.
Thiem will have a first round bye and open play against Switzerland’s Henri Laaksonen.
Other players of note in this week’s field include previous winners Juan Martin Del Potro and Kei Nishikori.
In opening round action Norway’s Casper Rudd retired in his match with American Tommy Paul who advanced 3-6,7-5,3-0.
Speaking about the competition, Thiem said: “Of course I love to play in Austria but I lost four times in a row and the week after in Canada. It’s a very important tournament so I decided to try something else this year and it’s a very nice tournament here so no problem. Yeah, We’ll see if it works better and it was a decision for the hard court series in summer”.
Also, Nishikori said: “Yeah it’s been a good year. Not winning a tournament yet but I hope I can win some of the tournaments by the end of this year. I hope I can play good this week. I have good memory here and I always play good here so I’ll try to win this tournament.”
On his part, Del Potro noted: “Well I’ve been training hard in Buenos Aires getting ready for this tournament, I like to play in the United States”.
“I like to play the tournaments before the U.S. Open which means something special also but Washington, D.C. is a great challenge to me to see how I feel on hardcourt after the grass and also a good training moment because the facilities here are great.”
