Alexander Zverev comes to Stuttgart as the top seed, playing in front of a loyal home crowd with high expectations. But Zverev is clearly out of form, and unless he manages to shake off the sting of his Australian Open final defeat, he won’t get far this season. There’s not much to say about his current level — he hasn’t done anything notable since January, and we don’t think he has a real shot at the trophy in Stuttgart. To make things worse, he opens against Alexandre Muller, who seems to be in better form than Zverev at the moment.

The same could be said about the second seed, Ben Shelton, who also had an extraordinary run in Melbourne (falling in the semis to Sinner), but hasn’t followed it up with anything substantial, apart from a quarterfinal in Indian Wells. His 58% win rate is rather low for a top 20 player.

Felix Auger Aliassime isn’t exactly known for his clay court skills, but he’s arguably the most in-form player among the seeds. The Canadian has already picked up two titles this year and also reached the final in Dubai. He seems to enjoy tier-2 tournaments like ATP 250s and 500s, while struggling at the Australian Open and the three Masters events played so far.

He might face #5 seed Cerundolo in the quarterfinals, but Felix got a bit lucky with his position in the draw since the bottom half looks noticeably lighter than the top. Both Cerundolo and Auger-Aliassime still hold a positive yield in our rankings, which says a lot about their form.

Last year’s champion, Jan-Lennard Struff, is far from the level he showed in 2024. He did reach the quarterfinals in Marseille, but has crashed out in the first round in nearly every other event. It’ll be tough for him to make another deep run in Stuttgart.