The BNP Paribas Fortis European Open in Brussels is one of three ATP 250 tournaments held this week alongside events in Almaty and Stockholm (preview article for both). Despite being the same grade tournament, the stake looks really high there, as main draw in Brussels is featured by two players competing for place in ATP Finals in Turin. Lorenzo Musetti leads the draw as top seed alongside second seed Felix Auger Aliassime. Musetti sits at 8th spot in ATP Race, while Auger Aliassime is his only real opponent at this point, trailing 530 points. Apart from them, the field contains two other top 20 ranked players - Jiri Lehecka and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, and other very interesting names who wrote some storylines this season.
Musetti tops bumpy upper half
Lorenzo Musetti is a representative of Italian contigent who excels on clay courts, but apart from his fellowcountries like Flavio Cobolli or Luciano Darderi who established in top 30 in recent months, he made a significant progress on hard courts this season. The world number eight won just 8 out of 15 matches played on hard courts before start of US Open, but the last Grand Slam campaign of the season was a start of Musetti's breakthrough on this surface. Musetti made into quarterfinals in Flushing Meadows and missed the chance to take the title in ATP 250 Chengdu by a little margin, as he got upset by qualiier Alejandro Tabilo in third set's tiebreak, wasting two matchpoints in the final. That was an excellent opportunity to win his second main tour title on hard courts after ATP 250 in Napoli 3 years ago. Getting in in Brussels as top seed would be a double reward, closing Musetti to the advance of ATP Finals.
His part of a draw looks quite challenging. Musetti will start from a match against Matteo Arnaldi or qualifier Yannick Hanfmann as a favorite, but the first serious hurdle can await in quarterfinals. Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard is 5th seed and can set-up the revenge against Musetti for the defeat suffered in first round of US Open. Mpetshi Perricard is the most powerful server in the field, averaging 12.9 aces per match this season at all surfaces. That not translates very well into results, as the Frenchman has poor record of 15-22 in main draw matches this year, including 12-13 at hard courts. However, he displayed the sample of his abilities by defeating world number 4 Taylor Fritz last week in Shanghai and taking a competitive fight against Holger Rune in following match. The contrary of his performance is astonishing, as Mpetshi Perricard wins 90.5% of service games on hard courts in compare to just 8.2% success in winning return games.
Second quarter is led by 3rd seed Jiri Lehecka who has very solid record of 23 wins in 34 matches played on hard courts this year, including recent run to quarterfinal in US Open and round of 16 in Shanghai, where he lost to eventual runner-up Arthur Rinderknech. Another bombserving specialist Reilly Opelka is also there, alongside a player who proved the abilities to make significant upsets in recent weeks - Daniel Altmaier.
Bottom half - Auger Aliassime, Davidovich Fokina and Belgian contenders
Felix Auger Aliassime seems to have quite formidable draw, being an absolute favorite of the bottom quarter. The other seed there is 7th Joao Fonseca. One of the most promising young talents in the tour will play his first competitive match since a month when he secured two victories for Brasil in Davis Cup playoffs, including the win over Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Fourth seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina leads the third quarter. The Spaniard plays his best season in career but got disappointed by losing all three finals achieved this year in Delray Beach, Acapulco and Washington. This section is loaded with hopes of local fans with top three Belgian players colliding in same part of a draw.
Top ranked home representative and 8th seed Zizou Bergs meets the wild card Raphael Collignon in the most anticipated match of first round. Both led their national team to a sensational away victory in Davis Cup qualifiers against Australia, where Collignon played one of the craziest match of the year, upsetting Alex De Minaur (review article). This happened just after another sensational upset made by Collignon in US Open, where he eliminated Casper Ruud after thrilling five-setter in second round. The world number 90 is currently in very good form, approaching Brussels after runs into final and semifinal of ATP Challenger Tour events. The winner of Bergs-Collignon encounter can set-up another all-Belgian clash with veteran David Goffin. The former world number 7 performed a big upset over Ben Shelton in last tournament in Shanghai. Goffin rarely succeeds in main tour nowadays, but three of his 8 victories on hard courts in top circuit this year happened against world stars - over aforementioned Ben Shelton twice and a huge sensation made against Carlos Alcaraz in Miami.
