Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas produced a moment of brilliance on Friday to turn the tables on #NextGenATP German Alexander Zverev at the Mutua Madrid Open for a place in his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 semi-final.

Cuevas was level-headed throughout his 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 victory over 20-year-old Zverev in 90 minutes to set up a Saturday clash against eighth seed Dominic Thiem or lucky loser Borna Coric.

The pair’s first meeting turned in Cuevas’ favour early in the second set, when Zverev served at 0-1, 40/30. Cuevas drew Zverev to the net with a delicate drop shot, only to be drawn to the net himself. Zverev then produced a backhand lob volley that sent the World No. 27 scurrying back to the baseline. Assured at the net, Zverev appeared to be favourite to win the rally. But Cuevas produced a sensational no-look winner that helped to give him an injection of confidence. It carried him to his 15th match win of the season.

Zverev, who had captured two ATP World Tour titles this year at the Open Sud de France (d. Gasquet) and at last week’s BMW Open by FWU (d. Pella), showed no signs of fatigue early on in his eighth match in 10 days.

Zverev competed with great maturity under a closed roof on Court Arantxa Sanchez Vicario to break Cuevas for a 3-1 lead. He closed out the 26-minute set to love with a short forehand crosscourt winner.

But Cuevas refocused and got his reward in the memorable second game with a backhand winner down the line, on his fourth break point opportunity. He hit his spots on serve and maintained good groundstroke depth for errors to creep into Zverev’s game. Cuevas ran through the second set in 28 minutes, losing four of his service points.

The decider was a tighter affair, featuring no breaks of serve until the final game, when mental and physical fatigue caught up with Zverev who dropped his serve to 15.

Cuevas, a three-time reigning champion at the Brasil Open in Sao Paulo, won his fourth straight three-setter of the week (also over Thomaz Bellucci, Nicolas Mahut and Benoit Paire) to improve to a 15-8 mark in 2017.

World No. 19 Zverev, who lost to Nick Kyrgios in the quarter-finals of the Miami Open presented by Itau, is now 21-9 on the season and leads the Emirates ATP Race To Milan, for one of eight spots at the 21-and-under Next Gen ATP Finals from 7-11 November.

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View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the quarter-final match-ups Friday at the Mutua Madrid Open & vote for who you think will win! 
Djokovic v Nishikori | Nadal v Goffin | Thiem v Coric | Zverev v Cuevas

Borna Coric, Pablo Cuevas, Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev have never reached the semi-finals of an ATP Masters 1000 event. Two will do so on Friday, one of whom will advance all the way to the final of the Mutua Madrid Open. The unlikely foursome isn’t entirely a surprise. Coric, Cuevas, Thiem and Zverev have each won a clay-court title on the ATP World Tour this season. 

Coric earned the biggest win of his career over World No. 1 Andy Murray 23 minutes after Zverev upset No. 11 seed Tomas Berdych on Thursday, making them the first #NextGenATP duo to reach the quarter-finals of an ATP Masters 1000 event. Nick Kyrgios, who aged out this season, is the only #NextGenATP player to appear in an ATP Masters 1000 semi-final, doing so at 2016 Miami.

Coric lost to World No. 80 Mikhail Kukushkin in qualifying on Sunday before replacing Richard Gasquet in the main draw. The lucky loser meets No. 8 seed Thiem in a rematch from Miami on March 25, when the Croat saved three set points in the second set to win 6-1, 7-5. Thiem is 0-4 in ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finals, though all four losses came against players ranked in the Top 6.

Zverev encounters Cuevas for the first time on tour. The unseeded Uruguayan is into his third ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final of the season after failing to advance this far in his first 28 appearances at this level. Cuevas held two match points against Pablo Carreno Busta at Indian Wells and was two points from defeating Lucas Pouille at Monte-Carlo before losing both of those quarter-finals.

Four-time champion Rafael Nadal and two-time champion Novak Djokovic could meet in the semi-finals, but first they must each defeat a Top 10 opponent on Friday. Djokovic opens play at 12 pm against No. 6 seed Kei Nishikori. Since stunning Djokovic in the 2014 US Open semi-finals, Nishikori has lost his last 10 meetings with the Serbian, including in the 2016 Madrid semi-finals.

Nadal faces No. 9 seed David Goffin for just the second time, having beaten the Belgian 6-3, 6-1 in the Monte-Carlo semi-finals on April 22. Nadal (31) and Goffin (27) lead all players in tour-level victories this season. The fourth-seeded Spaniard is 12-0 on clay in 2017 and could become the first player to sweep the Barcelona, Roland Garros and three clay-court ATP Masters 1000 titles.

2017 CLAY-COURT TITLES FOR MADRID QUARTER-FINALISTS
Borna Coric                        Marrakech
Pablo Cuevas                     Sao Paulo
Rafael Nadal                      ATP Masters 1000 Monte-Carlo, Barcelona
Dominic Thiem                  Rio de Janeiro
Alexander Zverev              Munich

View Friday schedule

Eighth seeds Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez set a clash with the top-seeded doubles team in the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals. The Spaniards defeated Tommy Haas and Max Mirnyi 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday to reach the last eight, where they will face Henri Kontinen and John Peers.

Ivan Dodig and Marcel Granollers, the seventh seeds, saved seven of the eight break points they faced to beat Fabio Fognini and Treat Huey 6-7(4), 7-5, 10-6. Next for the Croatian/Spanish tandem will be fourth seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo.

Also in Friday’s quarter-finals, third seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares will take on sixth seeds Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin, and second seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan will play Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock.

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Andy Murray has been forgiving of himself this clay-court season as he returns from a right elbow injury, but didn’t hold back about his third-round performance against Borna Coric on Thursday at the Mutua Madrid Open.

The World No. 1 hit 28 unforced errors in two sets and allowed the #NextGenATP Croatian to dominate the match. Having won Madrid in 2015 and finished runner-up last year, the Brit knows his current form is below the level required to produce big runs at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 level events.

“I definitely think I need to be concerned about today. It’s not always the worst thing losing a match, but it’s sometimes the manner of how you lose the match that can be concerning or disappointing,” said Murray. “I was disappointed to lose my match against Thiem in Barcelona, but felt like I competed really well and did some good stuff in the match. Today, I didn’t really do any of that. That’s concerning. So I need to think about exactly why that is, what I can do about it.”

“Most things weren’t working particularly well. When I started to go behind, I didn’t find any way to improve my game or to make it more difficult for him. I just let the same things keep happening, making mistakes very early in a lot of the rallies. I wasn’t building any points,” he added. “That was disappointing because you’re not always going to play your best tennis, but you can still find ways to make it difficult for your opponent. I didn’t do that at all today.”

Murray has expressed frustration about his serve over the past month. The shot that played an essential role in his dominance throughout the second half of 2016 has admittedly let him down this spring. But while his practice court time was limited while recovering from the elbow injury, he believes his game should have progressed further by now.

“I think it was normal in Barcelona and Monte-Carlo that I wasn’t going to serve as well as I would normally because I was still getting better. But I was able to practice everything else. I was able to do everything physically. That’s no reason for how I played today and the past few weeks,” said Murray. “However, when you do miss a period of time, the most important thing is to play. I didn’t for a month. That set me back a little bit.”

Murray is well aware he has piles of Emirates ATP Rankings points to defend for the rest of the year. In the next month, he defends points from winning Madrid and finishing runner-up at Roland Garros last year. Although he admitted he won’t be able to match those high standards unless his game improves, the World No. 1 is optimistic his game can quickly round into form. 

“Borna lost in the qualifying here a few days ago. Now he’s in the quarters playing very good tennis. Things can change fast,” said Murray. “But you need to have the correct ideas and understand why you’re in the position you’re in. Hopefully I can do that with my team, and play better in Rome and Roland Garros.”