With the 2020 Citi Open being cancelled because of the world wide pandemic, we have officially set foot on the horizon of one of the best tennis tournaments in the United States of America. The 2021 Citi Open. The tournament will take place from July 31 – August 8th at the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center in Washington, DC. On the ATP side, this year’s draw may be the best the tournament has ever seen. Nick Kyrgios won the Washington DC fan’s hearts in 2019 as he dominated the draw to hold up his 6th ATP trophy. Will anybody be able to stop Kyrgios?
There might be one player you know can win a tournament, and he goes by Rafael Nadal. With 20 grand slam wins, 88 ATP single titles, and 2 Olympic golds, Rafa will be making his Citi Open debut. The current #3 ranked player in the world is one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and will be a threat to win the title this year.
Nick Kyrgios, who has talent to be one of the best in the world will be in the 2021 draw after an unbelievable display of tennis at The Citi Open in 2019. Ranked #56 in the world, this beyond talented, hard serving, tweener hitting Aussie has a great chance to make a run here this year and win back to back titles. If Kyrgios is locked in, let’s just say he’s unbeatable. In 2019, Kyrgios took down Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniel Medvedev back to back to win the title. Can he make a run in DC again?
Other elite talent that will be competing at The Citi Open include Felix Auger-Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov, Jannik Sinner, and Kei Nishikori to name a few. All of these players have enough experience to be dominant in DC as they look to get going before the US Open. Hubert Hurkacz will also be joining in on the draw this year after his remarkable Wimbledon run this year where he took down Roger Federer. Hurkacz and Shapovalov both reached the Wimbledon semifinals and will be hoping to continue their great year thus far. Along with FAA, Karen Khachanov is also in the field after both of them made runs to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
We also have some American talent ready to take the court in our nation’s capital. Taylor Fritz, John Isner, Frances Tiafoe, Reilly Opelka, and Sam Querrey headline some of the USA’s best players in this year’s tournament. They all have what it takes to play some great tennis in DC, especially with the crowd behind them.
The rest of the draw is nothing to play with. We got Milos Raonic, Aslan Karatsev, Grigor Dimitrov, Daniel Evans, Alexander Bublik, and Alex de Minaur to name a couple more. De Minaur made a run here in 2018 all the way to the championship, where he lost to Alexander Zverev 6-2, 6-4. These other notable names are always a threat to make a run in any given tournament, and this year could be that run in this year’s Citi Open. With all this talent in the draw, who will have what it takes to lift the trophy?
Only time will tell. July 31st. Washington, DC. Rock Creek Park Tennis Center. One of the best ATP 500 level tournaments in the world. The best of tennis will be on display and only one can hold the trophy. Be ready.
Written by Eric Katz
