Murray seeded to meet Federer in final
Andy Murray has a long way to go before he will even think about such matters but the Scot might be heartened by the fact that he cannot meet either Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer until the final of the US Open, which begins here on Monday.
Murray, who has not played since Wimbledon because of a hip injury, is seeded No 2 for the year’s concluding Grand Slam tournament. If the players live up to their seedings, his semi-final opponent will be Alexander Zverev, the 20-year-old German who has made such a big breakthrough this summer, winning two Masters Series titles.
Nadal, who replaced Murray at the top of the world rankings this week, is seeded to face Federer in the semifinals. The Spaniard and the Swiss have won this year’s first three Grand Slam titles, Nadal having triumphed in Paris and Federer at Melbourne and Wimbledon.
Murray’s fitness has been a concern ever since the start of the grass-court season and his injured hip was clearly a major factor in his quarter-final defeat to Sam Querrey at Wimbledon. He has since pulled out of the Masters Series tournaments in Montreal and Cincinnati but has been practising here this week and clearly feels fit enough to play in his first tournament since Wimbledon.
The draw has certainly been kind to the Scot, who will face a 26-year-old American, the splendidly named Tennys Sandgren, in the first round. The world No 104 is of Swedish heritage and was named after his great grandfather.
Sandgren made 12 unsuc- cessful attempts to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament until his world ranking was finally good enough to get him into this year’s French Open, where he lost to Mikhail Kukushkin in straight sets in the first round. He then lost in the second round of qualifying at Wimbledon but rebuilt his ranking sufficiently to get into the main draw here.
In the second round Murray or Sandgren will face Germany’s Florian Mayer, the world No 75, or Brazil’s Rogario Dutra Silva, the world No 68.
Thereafter Murray is seeded to meet Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman in the third round, France’s Lucas Pouille in the fourth and France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter-finals. Murray has never played Schwartzman (world No 33), has won all four of his meetings with Pouille (world No 20) and 14 of his 16 matches against Tsonga (world No 12).
Kyle Edmund faces the Dutchman, Robin Haase, who is the No 32 seed, in the first round, while Aljaz Bedene, the other Briton in the main draw by dint of his world ranking, will play Russia’s Andrey Rublev, with Grigor Dimitrov, the world No 9, a potential secondround opponent.
Britain’s Cameron Norrie, the world No 226, will be in the main draw here for the first time after winning his final match in qualifying, beating Japan’s Go Soeda 6-1, 7-5. Norrie, aged 22, made his Grand Slam debut this summer at Wimbledon, where he was given a wild card but lost in straight sets to Tsonga in the first round. He will learn the identity of his first-round opponent here after all the qualifying matches have been completed. THE INDEPENDENT