Tennis Atlantic

2013 ATP Memphis Men’s Qualifying Preview

This weekend in Memphis 16 qualifying participants will battle it out for one of the 4 qualifying spots in the main draw. In many ways, this is like a mini challenger tournament with many notable names in the draw and a lot of talent.

1st section:

Top seed Michael Russell flew in from San Jose and starts off against wild card Christian Harrison. The winner could meet Donald Young or Denis Kudla (who has never beaten Young) for a spot in the main draw. Russell beat Young multiple times in recent weeks, including most recently in San Jose this week.

2nd section:

Tim Smyczek is playing great tennis and knocked off Fernando Verdasco in San Jose. He will open against Tennessee native son Rhyne Williams, the Dallas Challenger champion, yet again. Vasek Pospisil, coming off a 3 set loss to Isner in San Jose will face Daniel Munoz De La Nava of Spain (who qualified for the Aussie open this year). This is a very competitive section.

3rd section:

Philipp Petzschner of Germany, a Zagreb quarterfinalist and veteran, will face the big serving Ivo Karlovic. Ivo holds a 4-2 career record against him with all of their ATP matches coming on hard courts. Wild card Sekou Bangoura, a former Florida Gator, will take on Alex Bogomolov and the winners of these two matches will play for a main draw spot.

4th section:

Ilya Marchenko of the Ukraine will play Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan for the first time since 2009. Golubev has a 2-1 record against him. Matt Ebden plays wild card Connor Glennon, who is a standout local college player at the University of Memphis and hails from England. The winners will play in the final round of qualifying for the main draw spot.

—Steen Kirby