Novak Djokovic and Miomir Kecmanovic will take on Jannik Sinner and Stan Wawrinka in a blockbuster first-round doubles match at the Paris Masters.
There will be a tonne of famous players on the court, even if neither team has ever played together. The Paris Masters is the ninth and final ATP Masters 1000 event of the season, starting October 30 to November 5. In the ATP Rankings, Djokovic, Sinner, and Wawrinka have all broken into the Top 4. The third-seeded team of Matthew Ebden and Rohan Bopanna, who have advanced to the ATP Finals, will play the victorious pair in the second round. For the first time since the week following his victory at the US Open in September, Djokovic is competing in the Davis Cup. In doubles this year, he is 0-3. Wawrinka and another Swiss player Dominic Stricker won a doubles championship in Gstaad earlier this season. Other noteworthy doubles draw first-round matches are Marcelo Melo/Alexander Zverev versus Nathaniel Lammons/Jackson Withrow, and Jiri Lehecka/Ben Shelton versus Kevin Krawietz/Tim Puetz. The race for one of the four spots left in the ATP Finals in Turin is fierce this week. Currently ranked eighth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, Lammons and Withrow are not expected to make it to the season finale because Rinky Hijikata, ranked seventeenth, and Jason Kubler, ranked twenty-first, won the Australian Open this year and, as Grand Slam champions between eighth and twentieth, would be awarded a spot. The top seeds in Paris are Ivan Dodig/Austin Krajicek and the second seeds are the defending champions Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski. (ANI)
|