The Sofia Open will provide a somewhat low-key finish to the regular ATP Tour season.
It’s basically a final chance in 2020 for many players to compete, at least at the top level, with only next week’s season-ending ATP Finals, featuring the world’s top eight, to come.
That looming event means this tournament is a Sunday to Saturday one, wrapping up in time for the ATP Finals to start next Sunday.
Organisers must have hoped the race for places in that field would have still been alive heading into this week. Alas, Diego Schwartzman sealed the final berth on Friday and within minutes both he and Pablo Carreno Busta announced their withdrawals from Sofia.
They weren’t the first (or last) to do so and a tournament which had an original entry cut-off of 35 in the rankings now extends all the way down to 100.
There are still some good players entered but only three of the top 30 are here, led by world number 12 Denis Shapovalov, the 9/2 favourite.
He does have the big-serving game which has succeeded here in the past.
Mirza Basic was a surprise winner in 2017, while last season Daniil Medvedev used his delivery well to claim the title.
On each occasion, the tournament was staged in February. It had been initially been due to be held in September this year before Covid-19 got involved.
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