Novak Djokovic's Doubles Draw Difficult From The Start At The Western & Southern Open - ATP Tour

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Novak Djokovic and Filip Krajinovic will compete together for the fifth time at the Western & Southern Open.

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Top seeds Cabal/Farah and second seeds Kubot/Melo face tough openers

Novak Djokovic is doing double duty at the Western & Southern Open, the first ATP Tour event since play was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March. Djokovic and fellow Serbian Filip Krajinovic face a tricky test in the first round of the doubles draw against Americans Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe.

The winner of Djokovic/Krajinovic and Paul/Tiafoe will play top seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah or former doubles World No. 1 Jamie Murray and his partner, Neal Skupski. Second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo will try to beat Mate Pavic and Bruno Soares, both of whom have competed in the Nitto ATP Finals with different partners.

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Djokovic isn’t the only singles star in the draw, as Alexander Zverev and fellow German Tim Puetz will try to upset seventh seeds Raven Klaasen and Oliver Marach.

Defending champions Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek are the fourth seeds this year. The Croatian-Slovakian team will face singles standouts Alex de Minaur and Pablo Carreno Busta, who are competing together for the first time.

More interesting match-ups include fifth seeds Horacio Zeballos and Marcel Granollers playing Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov, eighth seeds Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic battling Russians Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, and Nicolas Mahut and Jan-Lennard Struff facing Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime and Milos Raonic.

Hubert Hurkacz and John Isner are first-round opponents in the singles draw, but they will team against Australian Open finalists Max Purcell and Luke Saville.