The 2024 tennis grass-court season is up and running, but when will big guns Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz be in action on the surface?
The ATP Tour grass campaign kicked off with two ATP 250 events this week with the Stuttgart Open in Germany and the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships in the Netherlands.
As per usual, the big-name players have opted to skip the opening week as new world No 1 Sinner and newly crowned French Open champion Alcaraz didn’t enter any events. Sinner played at Rosmalen last year and lost in the quarter-final, but he opted to sit out the tournament this time around.
Two players in the top five were due to play as Roland Garros runner-up Alexander Zverev was set to be the top seed in Stuttgart, but he withdrew after his extended run in Paris while world No 5 Daniil Medvedev pulled out of the Dutch ATP 250 event.
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The second week of the grass-court season is usually where the action heats up as there are two ATP 500 events with the Queen’s Club Championships taking place in London and the Halle Open in Germany.
Halle Open
The field is stacked as reigning Australian Open champion Sinner will headline the line-up and it will feature five players in the top 10. It will be Sinner’s first event as the world No 1 and he reached the quarter-final last year, but retired during his match against Alexander Bublik.
World No 4 Zverev is also set to make his grass-court bow at the event and he will be seeded second with Medvedev third, Andrey Rublev fourth and Hubert Hurkacz fifth. Stefanos Tsitsipas and defending champion Bublik are also in the main draw.
Queen’s Club Championships
One of the showpiece tournaments on the British calendar and defending champion Alcaraz has confirmed that he will return to London. There had been doubts over his participation following his French Open victory as players often tend to take an extended break after a major.
However, he confirmed that he still plans to play at Queen’s Club where he will be the top seed.
Alcaraz was 11-0 on grass last year as he won five matches at Queen’s and followed it up with the Wimbledon title.
This year’s Queen’s field will also feature world No 9 Alex de Minaur, Grigor Dimitrov, Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton, Holger Rune and five-time champion Andy Murray.
There are two final warm-up tournaments the week before Wimbledon gets underway as Devonshire Park LTC hosts the Eastbourne International and the Santa Ponsa Tennis Academy stages the Mallorca Championships.
Most of the top players prefer to sit out these events unless they are desperate for game time. World No 12 Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul (13), Ben Shelton (14) and Alexander Bublik (17) are the highest-ranked players who will feature at Eastbourne and Mallorca.