Nick Kyrgios pulled out of the ATP Atlanta 2017 draw last week, an action that caused a little bit of controversy for him. Earlier this week he was spotted in Australia's capital playing basketball in what looked like a mixed league. That raised questions for some regarding how serious his injury was. On that matter, it doesn't look that serious at all as Kyrgios is the 10th seed in the ATP Washington 2017 tournament (the Citi Open) following Friday's release of the draw.

ATP Washington previewed

The Washington event is part of the 500 series on the ATP Tour.

As such it has the potential to affect the rankings of peripheral players quite drastically. At this year's event, there are no top-five players in the draw. However, Kyrgios enters the tournament as the 20th-ranked player on tour. That has earned him just a 10 seed in the event, meaning that there are a fair amount of top-20 players contesting the draw.

Looking at the draw from Kyrgios' perspective, he is situated on the bottom of it. That means he is opposite to the tournament's top seed in Dominic Thiem. However, Kyrgios does share a path to the final with Kei Nishikori. The former US Open runnerup won the Washington event two seasons ago through Marin Cilic and John Isner in the late rounds.

Kyrgios has a bye through the first round and looks like a 'slam dunk' to win his 2nd-round match against what will be a peripheral player. Matters promise to get much tougher after the 2nd round. Seeded players near Kyrgios include Alexander Zverev, Steve Johnson, and Grigor Dimitrov.

Thiem not adept on the hard court

While Dominic Thiem is the tournament's top seed, he does not look particularly dangerous in the tournament.

Thiem is certainly a tournament closer as the 24-year old already has seven titles to his credit. However, five of those titles have been won on clay. Only one has been won on the hard-court surface, that coming at Acapulco in early 2016. Thiem actually sits in third place in the season-to-date singles rankings for 2017. However, he is more vulnerable on the hard-court surface than his seed suggests.

Milos Raonic, seeded 3rd at the Washington event, could emerge as a strong player in the field.

The tournament's main draw is scheduled to start on Monday with the final scheduled for Sunday, August 6th. Raonic is a reasonable pick to make the final from the top-half of the draw. On the bottom half, Kyrgios should be in the mix along with several other ATP players such as Zverev, Dimitrov, and Nishikori. A part of the US Open series, players will be looking to hit top form for Flushing Meadows, the final Grand Slam of the year that starts in about one month's time.
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