In a first-round showdown between two out-of-form players, Tallon Griekspoor produced the stronger performance, edging past last year’s ATP Vienna runner-up Karen Khachanov in three sets, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
A satisfying and relieving victory for the Dutchman, who closed out a hard-fought three-set match after suffering back-to-back three-set defeats to underdogs Valentin Vacherot in Shanghai and Jacob Fearnley in Stockholm last week. Those losses were particularly stinging, coming just after he notched the biggest win of his career by upsetting Jannik Sinner at the Shanghai Masters.
Griekspoor’s season has gone completely off track, lacking form and direction since his Mallorca title during the grass-court swing. In fact, he has not won consecutive (completed) matches since that triumph, a drought he will aim to end in Vienna this week.
Brandon Nakashima has not looked physically sharp in recent weeks, as seen in his second-set bagel against Kamil Majchrzak in Shanghai and a 1-6 second-set loss to Fabian Marozsan in Almaty. However, those issues did not appear in his Vienna opener, where he raced to a straightforward straight-sets win over Luciano Darderi.
The American’s debut ATP Vienna campaign in 2024 ended in a three-set loss to eventual runner-up Karen Khachanov in the second round. Avoiding another second-round exit and reaching the quarterfinals this week would mark Nakashima's ninth main-tour quarterfinal appearance in 2025, an impressive feat considering he had only reached 13 in total prior to this season.
Head-to-head: Brandon Nakashima leads 1-0. Late-season clashes between players with little at stake are often decided by who has the extra energy to keep pushing, and that could be the key factor here. Both players are equally capable of beating each other, and both have shown a dip in form in recent weeks, making this an unpredictable and open contest.
