WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Less than 40 days away from the start of the 2016 Winston-Salem Open at Wake Forest University, the tournament announced its player field for the sixth annual WSO on Wednesday, July 13. The field, which in total will have 48 singles players, features five players scheduled to return to Winston-Salem for the fifth time and six players returning for the fourth time while nine are set to make their first appearance.

The 2016 field does not feature a player ranked lower than No. 72 in the world, which marks the second-best cutoff in the tournament’s six-year history. The best cutoff came in 2012 when it was at 68. Last year, the Winston-Salem Open’s cutoff was 74.

“We as a staff are thrilled to see such a high number of players returning for their fourth and fifth years at the Winston-Salem Open, but we’re equally as thrilled with the number of new players that have signed up to come play here this summer,” said Winston-Salem Open Tournament Director Bill Oakes. “The fact that players return and we have more players signing up to make their first appearance here tells us we are doing things the right way here in Winston-Salem and we’re excited to get play underway again next month.”

In addition to reigning champion Kevin Anderson and Americans Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey, who were previously announced leading up to the sign-in deadline, the trio will be joined by top 40 players such as Richard Gasquet (No. 14), Benoit Paire (No. 23), Pablo Cuevas (No. 24), Gilles Simon (No. 28), Joao Sousa (No. 30), Viktor Troicki (No. 32), Albert Ramos-Vinolas (No. 35) and Federico Delbonis (No. 40).

Among the 38 players announced thus far, five hail from Spain, five more from France and five from Argentina while four players in the field come from the United States. No other country thus far has more than two players represented and 13 countries are represented by one player.

“Our field for 2016 is a very diverse, international field,” Oakes said. “We have 20 different countries represented so far this year from all over the map. Sure the representation is strong where you would expect it to be strong, but to see players here from so many other countries shows how much tennis means in so many parts of the world. To bring a piece of each of those countries here to Winston-Salem for a week, we take great pride in hosting these guys and showing them the best we have to offer.”

The 10 remaining spots for the field will be determined in August. Of those 10 spots, four of them will come via wild card entries. Last year, Anderson and Simon – who were the top two seeds in the tournament – entered the tournament by way of earning a wild card and Anderson went on to pick up his first win on the ATP tour in more than three years by beating Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the final, 6-4, 7-5. Other previous wild card participants in Winston-Salem include players like Andy Roddick, Tomas Berdych, Tommy Haas, Mardy Fish, James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt, Fernando Verdasco, Noah Rubin and Ryan Harrison. In addition to the singles field, a field of 16 doubles duos will be announced closer to the tournament.

“As we continue to grow as a tournament, we are seeing commonalities and patterns develop year after year,” Oakes said. “One of those common denominators year after year is fantastic tennis. The level of competition keeps getting greater and greater. We’re very excited about the field and the improvements to the tournament we’ve made this year and we can’t wait to put Winston-Salem and Wake Forest University on display again in August.”

The 2016 Winston-Salem Open Singles Field

Back