DC Open: Smaller men’s draw delivers instant drama, ‘unbelievable matchups’

WASHINGTON — The Mubadala DC Open introduced a drastic change to this year’s men’s field, and the ripple effects are evident. The tournament adjusted the men’s draw size from 48 to 32 players, aligning with the 15 other ATP 500-level tournaments worldwide.

“It just turns into a really strong tournament, as I feel like most of these 500s that have smaller draws do,” said Taylor Fritz, the No. 3 seed, on Saturday ahead of his first-round match. “It’s in a pretty prime week of the year for the players that want to play on hard courts and kind of get the US Open series started.”

The change eliminated any first-round byes and brought compelling opening-round matches starting Monday and Tuesday. The tournament’s stricter ranking line and stiffer competition have led to high-intensity matches and early round upsets as a pair of top six seeds have already been eliminated.

World No. 16, the fifth seed, Learner Tien lost in straight sets (5-7, 4-6) Tuesday afternoon to Frenchman Adrian Mannarino (No. 47) while Tiafoe, 19th in the world and seeded sixth, was beaten (6-4, 3-6, 4-6) Monday night by Terence Atmane (No. 56) of France.

Meanwhile, Tuesday morning, fellow American Tommy Paul (No. 21) dropped his opening match to Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak (No. 72) by a final score of 5-7, 6-7 (4), becoming one of four top-25 players to lose before the evening session of Day Two.

“Going from a 48 men’s draw to a 32 men’s draw is a huge change,” tournament chairman Mark Ein said. “Probably, in theory, we knew it would be big, and then you see the draw, and you realize it. We’ve wanted this for a while. We finally got there. So, the cutoff to get into the men’s draw directly was 47 in the world.

“If you kind of think about that, we had five top-10 players signed up. Three ended up coming. Everyone is in the top 47. You’re almost starting at the third round of a Grand Slam on the first day, so you get these unbelievable matchups.”

These results represent a stark contrast to the prior two years in Washington as only one top-five seed was eliminated in the Round of 32 in each of those tournaments. Despite the minimal number of early upsets in recent years, only one top-five seed on the men’s side has won the event in the last five years. It was Dan Evans, who was seeded fourth in 2023.

One of the new draw structure’s greatest benefits is how it offers fans a unique chance to see marquee matches that typically would be reserved for the later stages of a tournament. That is one of this year’s most intriguing elements for fans like 39-year-old Landon White of Baltimore, who is attending the tournament for a sixth time.

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“Normally you have to go to a second week of a grand slam to get these types of matches,” White said. “DC is special.”

The decreased draw size spotlighted two of the sports emerging talents in a round one matchup Tuesday as 22-year-old Arthur Fils from France (No. 22) took on 19-year-old Spainard Rafael Jodar (No. 24). The announcement of that match was met with oohs and aahs during Saturday’s draw reveal. Jodar picked up his first win over Fils in straight sets (7-6 (3), 6-3).

2025 DC Open Champion and top seed Alex De Minaur (No. 6) begins his title defense against Stefanos Tsitsipas (No. 51) on Wednesday. The 14th meeting between the two, it is only the third time they are facing each other in the Round of 32 or earlier.

This article will be updated. Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Steinberg at jsteinberg@baltsun.com, 443-442-9445 and x.com/jacobstein23.