Schedule of play released for day one of the ATP Challenger Tour Finals – Tennis News
The final stage is set for the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger Tour Finals, with the first day’s order of play released. The season ending grand finale will be held on the indoor hard courts of the Ginásio
do Ibirapuera in São Paulo, Brazil, from 16th of November, with eight most successful players on the Challenger Tour competing to finish their season on a glorious note.
It is the first edition of the event and like the ATP World Tour Finals, only the eight most successful players of the running season are awarded berths in the tournament draw. Top-seven players with the most accumulated points
in the current ATP Challenger Tour events qualified for the singles draw, with one wildcard entrant to make it a field of eight contestants. However, points from a maximum of ten ATP Challenger tournaments are countable for the qualification of the grand finale.
Following are the seeded players for the prestigious field of the first edition of the ATP Challenger Tour Finals:
1. Thomaz Bellucci – Brazil
2. Rui Machado – Portugal
3. Martin Klizan – Slovakia
4. Dudi Sela – Israel
5. Cedrik-Marcel Stebe – Germany
6. Andreas Beck – Germany
7. Matthias Bachinger – Germany
8. Bobby Reynolds – United States
The eight competitors are divided into two groups, namely Green Group and Yellow Group.
Green Group:
Thomaz Bellucci Martin Klizan Andreas Beck Bobby Reynolds
Yellow Group:
Rui Machado Dudi Sela Cedrik-Marcel Stebe Matthias Bachinger
Four matches are featured on the opening day of the tournament, with two matches from each group. First up, fourth seed Dudi Sela will take on the fifth seed German, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe at 15:00 local time to kick off the mega
event. Sela is ranked at number nine in the ATP Year-to-Date Challenger Rankings and qualified for the event with brilliant performances in eight Challenger tournaments. Stebe played 13 events this year and is ranked at number 12.
In the other Yellow Group-Match to follow, top-ranked Rui Machado will take on the seventh seed German, Matthias Bachinger. Machado is the most successful player on the Challenger Tour so far and is the hot favourite for winning
the mega event.
Martin Klizan will take on the other German opponent, Andreas Beck, in the third match of the evening, while the final encounter of the day will be held between the top seed Thomaz Bellucci and Bobby Reynolds.
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