{"id":106606,"date":"2026-06-14T07:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=106606"},"modified":"2026-06-13T14:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:54:10","slug":"halle-open-draw-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/06\/14\/halle-open-draw-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Halle Open Draw Preview: Alexander Zverev top seed, Ben Shelton faces Nick Kyrgios, Alexander Bublik battles qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Terra Wortmann Open<\/a> will be held from 15\u201321 June. This is the curtain raiser for the most prestigious grass-court event, Wimbledon. Since its establishment in 1993, the Halle Open has hosted some of the sport’s best players. Roger Federer has 10 Halle titles to his name, while Yevgeny Kafelnikov has won three.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexander Bublik has won two titles, and recent winners include Ugo Humbert, Hubert Hurkacz, and Jannik Sinner. But what does the 2026 Halle Open draw look like?<\/span><\/p>\n

2026 Halle Open Draw Preview<\/h2>\n

The top half of the draw will see Alexander Zverev headline this year\u2019s championship<\/a>. This will mark his first tournament since winning the French Open title. The German finds himself as the top seed on home soil. Zverev is the strong favorite to win the title. His best result at the Halle Open came as a teenager in 2017, when he lost the final to Roger Federer. The Roland Garros champion starts his campaign against Vit Kopriva in the first round, and a potential Round of 16 match against French Open quarterfinalist Joao Fonseca looms if the Brazilian gets the best of Yannick Hanfmann.<\/p>\n

Aussie Alexei Popyrin awaits qualifying in the first round, and a victory could see him face defending champion Alexander Bublik, who plays a qualifier. If the seeds hold, we may have Bublik and Zverev in the quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

Dallas champion Ben Shelton<\/a> will face 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios, who was awarded a wild card. The other match to determine who faces Shelton or Kyrgios in the Round of 16 is between Karen Khachanov and Ethan Quinn. Taylor Fritz will battle it out with Belgian Zizou Bergs to determine who plays Fabian Maroszsan or Valencia Challenger title winner Miomir Kecmanovic in the Round of 16. If the seeds hold, we may have an all-American encounter between Fritz and Shelton in the quarterfinals, a rematch of the Stuttgart final.<\/p>\n

The bottom half of the draw sees Montpellier Open winner, Felix Auger-Aliassime, as the second seed, face Portuguese hopeful Nuno Borges for a place in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

Geneva Open winner, Learner Tien, who is enjoying a breakout season, will face a tricky opponent in German wild card Max Schoenhaus. The winner is likely to face Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second round.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Roland Garros finalist Flavio Cobolli faces a tough encounter against Frances Tiafoe in the first round. The winner will play either Sho Shimabukuro or Talon Griekspoor in the Round of 16. If the seeds hold, Cobolli and Auger-Aliassime will likely meet in the quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

2021 US Open winner Daniil Medvedev faces a tricky encounter with Argentine Tomas Etcheverry in the first round. The other match to determine who faces Medvedev in the Round of 16 will feature Terrence Atmane and a qualifier.<\/p>\n

2024 Madrid Masters 1000 champion Andrey Rublev will kick-start his campaign against 2022 Halle Open winner Hubert Hurkacz, who comes into the tournament with a protected ranking. The winner of this huge match will play the winner of the match between a qualifier and German Daniel Altmaier, who was awarded a wild card.<\/p>\n

A potential quarterfinal between Medvedev and Hurkacz, or between Medvedev and Rublev, is highly possible if the seeds hold.<\/p>\n

The qualifiers will be placed in the main draw after the qualifying rounds on Saturday and Sunday. The main draw play starts on Monday.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane – USA TODAY Sports<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Terra Wortmann Open will be held from 15\u201321 June. This is the curtain raiser for the most prestigious grass-court event, Wimbledon. Since its establishment in 1993, the Halle Open has hosted some of the sport’s best players. Roger Federer has 10 Halle titles to his name, while Yevgeny Kafelnikov has won three. Alexander Bublik […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5865,"featured_media":57718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[510,85,6584,259,16662,209],"class_list":["post-106606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","tag-alexander-bublik","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-atp-halle","tag-atp-tour","tag-ben-shelton","tag-nick-kyrgios"],"modified_by":"Shane Black","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5865"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106606"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106629,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106606\/revisions\/106629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}