Australian gamers will fly the flag at tour occasions on three totally different continents this week, with Aussie No.1 Alex de Minaur main the cost on the ATP Paris Masters.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 28 October 2024 | Matt Trollope
Australians will function within the attracts at ATP and WTA occasions throughout three totally different continents this week, with the Paris Masters being the most important of the trio.
It’s the place Alex de Minaur, Alexei Popyrin and Jordan Thompson will fly the flag for Australia, competing for the champion’s prize of greater than $1.47 million plus 1000 rating factors.
The rating factors are particularly of curiosity to De Minaur, given the No.9 seed is on the cusp of qualifying for the celebrated eight-player ATP Finals in Turin.
> DRAW: ATP Masters 1000 Paris
De Minaur, who opens his Paris Masters marketing campaign towards Argentina’s Mariano Navone, sits lower than 200 factors behind eighth-placed Andrey Rublev within the race to the season-ending occasion.
Popyrin, at present ranked twenty fifth, has drawn former world No.6 Matteo Berrettini as his first-round opponent, whereas world No.29 Thompson begins towards Spain’s Pedro Martinez.
Chris O’Connell and James Duckworth fell within the qualifying rounds in Paris; O’Connell got here inside a set of the primary draw earlier than shedding to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
WTA motion continues this week in Asia, the place Aussies Kimberly Birrell and Priscilla Hon enter the primary draw on the 250-level event in Hong Kong.
Birrell, ranked 111th after her current run to the WTA closing in Osaka, faces Ana Bogdan whereas Hon takes on Eudice Chong.
In Mexico, Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic and Maya Joint will play on the WTA 250 event in Merida, with each seeking to proceed their spectacular kind.
Tomljanovic, the third seed who opens towards a qualifier, has gained seven of her previous 9 matches and not too long ago reclaimed the Australian girls’s No.1 rating.
Joint, who has risen to a career-high rating of world No.110 throughout a breakout season, contests the primary draw of a WTA event for the primary time and faces Canadian Marina Stakusic.
The 18-year-old’s solely different tour-level look got here at this 12 months’s US Open, the place she superior to the second spherical after qualifying for the primary draw.
Astra Sharma fell within the closing spherical of Merida qualifying.
