The 2015 edition of the tennis tournament BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy will start on Saturday in Bucharest at the BNR Arenas. It brings top tennis players such as Gilles Simon, Gael Monfils, Ivo Karlovic, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Lukas Rosol and Andreas Seppi.
The main favourite is Frenchman Simon, world number 13, who won the tournament three times in Bucharest in 2007, 2008 and 2012.
Monfils, the world number 18, who has reached the semi-finals at the Monte Carlo Masters, will try to take revenge after being forced to abandon before the last year’s semi-final against Grigor Dimitrov, when the Bulgarian eventually won the trophy.
Janko Tipsarevic will also compete, who has not played at all in 2014 (in 2012 he was world number eight). He played in Bucharest in 2013, when he was the main favourite, Agerpres informs.
Czech tennis player Lukas Rosol (ATP 31), Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, 2013 finalist, Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, the Italian Andreas Seppi, Viktor Troicki, Sam Querrey will also play in Bucharest. Romanian tennis player Marius Copil will receive a wildcard.
The tournament has total prizes amounting to EUR 439,405.
The winner of the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy tournament, which will take place from April 18 to 26, will receive a cheque for EUR 80,000. The finalist will be rewarded with EUR 42,100; the semi-finalists will get EUR 22,800 each. Players qualified for the quarterfinals will be rewarded with a cheque worth EUR 12,990.
The organizers informed that the winners of the doubles event will get EUR 24.280.
Qualifications for the simple event will take place on 18, 19 and 20 April. Matches in the first round in singles and doubles are scheduled on April 20-21. The program starts at 10.00 on April 18 and April 20 and at 12.00 on April 19.
The 2015 edition will award the champion with a new trophy signed by Romanian artist Ioan Nem?oi.