ATP Lyon Preview and Picks
Favorites, top seeds, and dark horses to watch
History
Parc de la Tete d’Or is the venue that will host the 250 Lyon Tournament for a 4th time on clay courts. The tournament was played on Indoor hard between 1987-2009 until it was removed from the calendar but returned from 2017 while changing surfaces.
Tournament as many others last year was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Benoit Paire is the defending champion, as he defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime in the final in 2019. The Frenchman is not here, but Felix returns as the no.7 seed.
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Favorites and Top Seeds
With the addition of Dominic Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas via wild cards it is really hard to find more interesting and packed draw in a 250 event ever.
3 top 10 players and all 8 seeded ones are within first 24 of the official Rankings.
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Top Half
After returning from almost 2-month absence no.1 seed Dominic Thiem went on to the semifinals in Madrid where he lost to eventual champion Alexander Zverev. His Rome campaign was far short than many, including me, anticipated. Barely surviving Marton Fucsovics in R1 he lost to the surprise of the tournament – Lorenzo Sonego as a -330 favorite.
Accepting a wild card could definitely tell that the Austrian wants more time to get back where he once was and get more clay court play while the French Open is only 2 weeks away.
Jannik Sinner is the first projected seed Dominic could face. If we scratch the loss to Popyrin in Madrid where he was -550 favorite, the young Italian has been dealt losses on the red only by players such as Nadal, Djokovic and Tsitsipas. Tournaments are so packed and competitive these days that is hard to go further without facing someone big early on and in Jannik’s case he has been unable to jump over such hurdle. He has 45-39 w/l record against higher ranked players than him and 43-11 w/l against lower ranked ones all time.
What has happened to Diego Schwartzman? Last year finalist in Rome and a SF in French Open he hasn’t been anywhere near that form failing to win match in any of the 3 clay Masters played in Europe. Long gone is the memory of his run and claiming the title in Buenos Aires, but in that event, he had to win 1 match against top 100 player. Playing 3 top 30 players in R1 in each Masters event isn’t the same. Still part of top 10 he needs points fast as if he continues this kind of form, when September comes and those 2020 points drop, he will be out of not only top 10 but top 20 for sure.
Bottom Half
I just cannot see why Stefanos accepted a wild card to this event. He has just lost a 2 day battle with Novak Djokovic in Rome where he was leading numerous times and served for the match only to lose it 7-5 in the 3rd.
Being up a set and a break, the match was forced to stop due to rain and resumed on the next day r and he was just not capable to put the final touches on his win against Djokovic. Credit of course to the Serb for fighting with everything he got but that whole encounter for sure took a lot from the Greek, who since 12.04 has missed only 1 week of play but maybe that loss to Casper Ruud in R2 in Madrid gave him enough of a breather to continue with his great form in 2021.
David Goffin is the highest seed from the bottom part of the draw which Stefanos may face in QF. The Belgian is nowhere near a good form. Many expected more of him especially defeating Alexander Zverev in Monte Carlo, only to lose to Daniel Evans the match after and since the clay season started, he has lost to players below him in the rankings. He has a good draw that might become even better if Stefanos carries some fatigue along the way from Rome.
Underdogs and Dark Horses
Aslan Karatsev is a frequent mentioned player on the tournament preview pages in the past weeks and deservingly so. R1 match against Sinner is something an even casual fan should enjoy witnessing. The Russian defeated Medvedev in Rome only to lose to the big serving American Reilly Opelka and will look for better fate here and although this is a huge hurdle early on if he can pass the Italian it could really have a good open
Cameron Norrie lost to Nadal in Barcelona QF and then in the final in Estoril. He has been in steady form and despite a withdrawal in Madrid due to Foot issue he played ok in Rome, passing through the qualies and surrender in R2 to Fokina. He has had a good underdog wins along the way against Khachanov in Barcelona (+260) and Garin in Estoril (+200) so he is definitely on the rise and someone to watch for.
Picks
Looking forward to the winner of Sinner/Karatsev which I think would have a good chance to even take Thiem out and make it deep here while from the bottom part I could see Felix Auger Aliassime make a run. His collaboration with Uncle Toni Nadal has been steadily improving and he might be ready for some upset wins.
