The players and officials pose for a photograph during the official draw ceremony of the Qatar Exxonmobil Open at Four Seasons Hotel yesterday. Pictures: Kamutty VP/The Peninsula
Top seed and World No.5 Dominic Thiem of Austria will take on Evgeny Donskoy of Russia while Qatar’s Jaber Al Mutawa will square up to a qualifier in the first round matches of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open at the Khalifa Tennis and Squash Complex in the ATP tournament which kicks off on Monday.
This will the first ever competitive meeting between Thiem, who had an ATP high ranking of world No. 4 in November this year, and the World No.72 from Russia.
The number two seed, Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta was drawn against Croatia’s exciting young talent, Borna Coric, in a ceremony held at Four Seasons Hotel yesterday.
Meanwhile, number three seed Thomas Berdych of the Czech Republic - a semi-finalist in the past two years in Doha - will begin against Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff.
The draw ceremony conducted by ATP officials was held in the presence of the participating players saw some of the top ranked players like, Florian Mayer of Germany and Feliciano Lopez of Spain taking a dip in the pots along with Tunisian wild card Malek Jaziri.
Thiem will meet Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the third round, if the Frenchman get past his opponents in the first two rounds of the $1,286,675 tournament.
Gasquet, who won in 2013, will take on Victor Burgos Estrella of Dominican Republic in the first round and if he gets past the first challenge, he will face the winner of the clash between World No. 69 Mayer and qualifier.
Four players will make it to the round of 32 from the qualifying rounds which will end today while three players have been handed wild card by the organisers.
Besides Jaziri and Al Mutawa, 2014 runner up Gael Monfils of France have also been handed wildcards.
In the lower half of the draw, Lopez, a Grand Slam winner in the doubles category takes on compatriot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, which has three seeded players Verdasco Fernando, Albert Ramos-Vinolas and Carreno, all from Spain.
Fernando takes on Sela Dudi of Israel while Ramos-Vinolas will need to overcome Pella Guido of Argentina.
