OSTRAVA, September 1, 2020

Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not cooperate on Tuesday, as unrelenting rain forced all first-round matches at the Ostrava Open by Moneta to be cancelled and postponed until Wednesday. With a sunny and mild forecast, tomorrow will be a busy but beautiful day with a total of 16 matches scheduled to be played.

World No. 130 Henri Laaksonen, top seed of the €13,280 clay-court event from Switzerland, will open his title bid in the north-east of the Czech Republic taking on Brayden Schnur of Canada. Twenty-eight year-old Laaksonen won the only previous meeting between the two in the second round of the 2017 Knoxville Challenger.

No. 2 seed Ilya Ivashka will also step into action for the first time. The World No. 139 from Belarus will take on Czech qualifier Vit Kopriva in his opening round match. Following two defeats in his first two tournaments of the season in Indian Wells and Prague, third favourite Hyeon Chung of Korea is seeking his first match win in 2020. The 2017 Next-Gen-ATP champion, who struggled with injuries in 2016 (abdominal), 2018 (foot blisters and right ankle) and 2019 (back), will play Czech veteran Lukas Rosol.

In an all-Dutch encounter, Robin Haase will play Tallon Griekspoor, who finished runner-up to Aslan Karatsev of Russia at last week’s RPM Prague Open by Moneta. Karatsev will also return to the court facing local wild card entry Tomas Machac, who lifted his maiden trophy on the ATP Challenger Tour earlier this year at the Koblenz Open in Germany.