Madrid champs Korda/Thompson meet Ram/Salisbury in Rome opener

Can Sebastian Korda and Jordan Thompson claim another big scalp to kick-start their Internazionali BNL d'Italia campaign?

The American-Australian duo has been drawn against third seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the first round at the clay-court ATP Masters 1000 in Rome. Last week, Korda and Thompson defeated five established doubles pairings, including four seeded teams, en route to winning the Mutua Madrid Open in their first tournament together.

Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos’ run to the semi-finals in the Spanish capital propelled them to joint-No. 1 in the PIF ATP Doubles Rankings for the first time. The top-seeded Spanish-Argentine duo will take on singles stars Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Arthur Fils in their opening match in Rome, where they lifted the trophy in 2020.

Second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden, the leaders in the PIF ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, will likely come up against passionate home support when they take on Italian wild cards Matteo Arnaldi and Francesco Passaro in the first round. Austin Krajicek and Neal Skupski are seeded fourth as they team up in a one-event partnership in Rome. The pair of former World No. 1s will start their campaign against Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev.

Defending champions Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski face a tough opening test in Rome. Their opponents are Ariel Behar and Adam Pavlasek, who reached their maiden Masters 1000 championship match last week in Madrid. It will be a maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash between the two teams.

Two popcorn clashes featuring only Top 30 singles stars feature in the first-round draw. Felix Auger-Aliassime and Frances Tiafoe will take on Alexander Bublik and Ben Shelton, while all-American duo Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul meet Argentines Francisco Cerundolo and Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

Stefanos Tsitsipas is also set to pull double duty at the Foro Italico. The World No. 8 in singles will play alongside Robin Haase against seventh seeds Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic in the first round. Mektic is a two-time champion in Rome, where he lifted the trophy in 2021 and 2022 with Mate Pavic.