The Andalucia Open just like ATP Cagliari reached agreement with ATP for 1 yearlong licence to stage a tournament and will fill a void created in the calendar from the cancellations of Marrakesh and Houston

Favourites/Top Seeds…. Marbella has the only 2 top 20 players playing this week in face of Carreno Busta and Fognini. The draw had to be even more packed but Alexander Zverev decided to not take advantage of the given Wildcard and withdraw and that opportunity was accepted but very talented and promising Carlos Alcaraz.

Last year’s QF at Roland Garros, Carreno Busta must be relieved coming into the clay court season as he hasn’t been able to achieve nothing significant in the first 3 months of the year, while Fabio had a disappointing Miami Open losing in first round to Korda ,so will be interesting to see if these two can pick up their game on red clay.

Underdogs/Dark Horses… Despite his hard 1^st round draw in face of Kwon, Holger Rune (#319) received a wildcard to this tournament and is someone we will hear about more and more in the future. 17 year old Danish player who made highlights getting through the qualies all the way to the QF in Santiago last month beating Paire (#29) along the way has shown impressive game in his early development and may surprise some people

Jaume Munar will play the final on the Challenger tournament played in the same city so maybe he has accustomed to the conditions here and may put a dent into Fognini’s run in R2.

Notable matchups… F. Lopez – T. Daniel – the 39 year old Spaniard has only 2 wins this year, which came in February in Australian Open. He hasn’t been performing that well on clay in last couple of years, but given his age this won’t seem change for the good in the future. Currently priced at +150 for the win, seems a good value for a home soil player against Daniel who is mixing lower tier ATP with challengers with mixed results.