By the time you are reading this article this weeks ATP Tour tennis action at Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand should be down to the quarter finals stage. At Sydney second seed Medvedev who lost the Brisbane final last week withdrew pre-tournament due to fatigue and sixth seed Pouille was the only seed to be knocked out in the first round by qualifier Rublev (advised 6/1 Skybet).

Top-seed Tsitsipas, third seed Schwartzman and fourth seed Simon who received a first round bye were due to play their first matches of the tournament in the early hours of this morning against Lucky Loser Andreozzi from Argentina, qualifier and veteran Garcia-Lopez from Spain and veteran Querrey from the USA respectively.

Fifth seed Aussie and NextGen star De Minaur was due to complete his second round match, which was suspended due to bad weather, against qualifier Opelka from the USA, seventh seed Fucsovics from Hungary was due to play the unseeded Aussie Millman (advised 51/2) and eighth seed Seppi was due to play the unseeded Klizan (advised 33/1) from Slovakia, all in the early hours of this morning. Qualifier Rublev (advised 6/1 Skybet) was also due to face qualifier Nishioka from Japan in the early hours of this morning.

Over at Auckland the top four seed Isner from the USA (advised 5/1), second seed Fognini from Italy, third seed Checcinato and fourth seed Carreno-Busta were all due to open their campaigns in the early hours of this morning against Fritz from the USA, Gojowczyk from Germany, Sandgren from the USA and veteran Ferrer from Spain respectively.

Fifth seed and Doha winner Bautista Agut withdrew pre-tournament with a left foot injury and eighth seed Monfils (advised 12/1) also withdrew pre-tournament due to right leg injury. Sixth seed Chung, seventh seed Shapovalov and ninth seed Johnson all lost in the first round against Wild Card Statham from New Zealand, veteran Sousa from Portugal and veteran Mayer from Argentina respectively.

British number two Cam Norrie who received a Wild Card for Auckland had made it to the second round and was due to play veteran Sousa in the early hours of this morning for a place in the quarter finals. Finally, Wild card and veteran Ferrer is rolling back the years so far this year posting some impressive wins against proven and established ATP players and has to be respected this week if he continues to play and win in the same fashion.

Selections:

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