The draw for the main draw of the Erste Bank Open took place on Saturday at the STEFFL department store in Vienna. The two young stars Joel Schwärzler and Flavio Cobolli helped conduct the draw. It was the latter who presented Schwärzler with the biggest possible opponent on his debut at ATP 500 level: Alexander Zverev, number 3 in the world and number 1 in the tournament. In addition, Vienna winner 2021 and Red Bull BassLine winner 2023 and 2024 - so the German feels more than comfortable on the Viennese hardcourt. Cobolli then also “apologized” to Schwärzler for the draw.

Dominic Thiem will play 22-year-old Italian Luciano Darderi in the first round as he bids farewell to professional tennis. Before that, Thiem will celebrate his farewell during “Super Sunday” on Sunday evening with a show duel against Alexander Zverev. Tickets for this event are still available here.

More top duels

There will be a number of other matches in the first round. For example, there will be an all-Italian duel between 2020 finalist Lorenzo Sonego and No. 6 seed Lorenzo Musetti.
The tournament's No. 3, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, will face the up-and-coming Chinese player Zhizhen Zhang. Japanese superstar Kei Nishikori - like the two Austrians with a wild card in the main event - will have to deal with the strong Brit Jack Draper, seeded No. 7 in Vienna.

Crowd favorite Frances Tiafoe (USA/5) will play against Britain's Cameron Norrie in the opener and the American number 4 seed Tommy Paul will have to deal with his compatriot Brandon Nakashima.

The tournament's No. 2, Australian Alex de Minaur, will face the always dangerous on hard court German Jan-Lennard Struff in the first round.