Grass Court Season Concludes With ATP 250 Newport
Steen Kirby, Tennis Atlantic

The ATP 250 in Newport at the Tennis Hall of Fame concludes the grass court season and begins the North American summer of tennis. Here is your look at all the action.

Top Half:

Adrian Mannarino will begin against James Duckworth or Jordan Thompson, Mannarino is a great grass court player so he should beat Thompson and Gilles Muller to reach the semis. Muller’s path is Marcos Baghdatis, then Marcel Granollers or a qualifier. While Muller is usually good on grass, his poor form means Mannarino has a decided edge.

Steve Johnson did not have a good grass court season, but back in the States he should get past a qualifier or Christian Harrison before running into Alex De Minaur, one of the breakthrough young guns this year and a player who did have a great grass season. De Minaur should eke past the big serving Ivo Karlovic, then defeat Dudi Sela or a qualifier, with De Minaur favored to emerge from this section.

Bottom Half:

Mischa Zverev should ease past Donald Young/Vasek Pospisil and then defeat Denis Kudla after Kudla defeats Ruben Bemelmans and Ramkumar Ramanathan/qualifier. Zverev has won a title on grass this year and he has a great shot to do it again if he can get past a tough grass court player in Kudla.

Matt Ebden faces Bjorn Fratangelo or Tim Smyczek then should run into Sergiy Stakhovsky in the quarters. Stako will face Jason Jung, coming off success on the challenger tour, then Nicolas Mahut or Ryan Harrison, with Harrison likely falling victim to a tough section full of good grass court players. Ebden vs. Zverev is my bottom half semifinal.

Predictions

Semis
Mannarino d. De Minaur
Zverev d. Ebden

Any of these four players could emerge as champion on this surface, but Mannarino and Zverev should make the final with Zverev continuing his recent success to lift another title.

Final
Zverev d. Mannarino