The website for the 2017 Western & Southern Open, a Masters-Series-1000 event that will come from Cincinnati next week, announced the tournament's four Wild Cards on Tuesday. The American-based tournament kept the wild cards to American nationals. Tommy Paul, Jared Donaldson, Stefan Kozlov, and Frances Tiafoe were the quartet of American players that were announced as recipients of the wild cards.
The wild cards certainly didn't go to the the most famous players in the world at the moment. However, not one of them is 21 yet, meaning that they all have time on their side when it comes to improving.
Tiafoe might be the brightest among the four as he is currently in the top 100, just a couple of weeks removed from a spot in the tour's top-60.
Murray's inclusion reliable?
The same source also mentioned a quartet of more famous tennis players being among the main draw's players' field. Paul, Donaldson, Kozlov, and Tiafoe, according to the August 8th news release, "join a men’s field that includes seven-time champion Roger Federer, two-time champion Andy Murray, former champion Rafael Nadal and defending champion Marin Cilic."
While each of those four players is on the current players' list surely Cilic and Murray could be listed as questionable for the 2017 Cincinnati Masters at this point. They are both currently missing the 2017 Rogers Cup this week and neither has played a match since Wimbledon.
The All England Club results may seem like fresh memories for tennis fans, but they were a few weeks ago now. That suggests that Cilic and Murray could each be bothered by injuries that aren't necessary short term. Certainly, the way Tim Henman spoke about Murray a short time ago suggested that the Scot might be hung up for a while with his hip.
The Rogers Cup affirmed Murray's participation
As for the source, website's for tournaments aren't actually great sources when it comes to players of questionable playing status. It was only 8 days ago that the website for the Rogers Cup announced that "World No. 1 Andy Murray (would) be the top seed" at the 2017 Rogers Cup (July 31st).
It was a short time later that Murray pulled out so tennis fans can't take Murray's inclusion on the players' list for the Western & Southern Open to mean that he is actually going to play. The same could be said about Cilic, however, with the Croat there is not so much buzz about him having a long-term injury as there is with Murray.
Cilic and Murray, if they both go to Cincinnati, would be returning finalists at the event. The Croat won the title last season while Murray, following tiring efforts at the Rio Olympics, finished as the runner-up. There's nothing uncommon about a top player pulling out of a tournament a few days in advance of a draw or even after the draw is released. One would certainly expect to hear something out of their camps in the next couple of days, information that would be more reliable than the tournament's website (as their article includes a plug for ticket sales).
