Grigor Dimitrov is one win away from his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final after a commanding 6-2, 6-1 win over Japan’s Yuichi Sugita Friday at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. Dimitrov has now reached four semi-finals at the ATP World Tour’s premier tournament level, but is yet to reach a title match at the 1000s.

The Bulgarian broke World No. 46 Sugita at the beginning of the first set to race to a 3-0 lead and twice at the beginning of the second set to surge ahead 5-0. He lost just five points on serve and did not face a break point.

En route to victory, the seventh-seeded Bulgarian pulled off a spectacular diving hot shot volley, showing plenty of grit even when comfortably ahead a set and 4-0.

He next will play the winner of the all-American clash between veteran John Isner and #NextGenATP’s Jared Donaldson.

By reaching the semi-finals, Dimitrov moves ahead of Andy Murray into eighth spot in the Emirates ATP Race To London. With fifth-placed Stan Wawrinka and seventh-placed Novak Djokovic having announced that they won’t play again this season, Dimitrov is well placed to grab one of the eight spots at the Nitto ATP Finals, where he is hoping to make his debut at the season-ending event.

Sugita was appearing in his first Masters 1000 quarter-final. The result may seem him surpass his career-high Emirates ATP Ranking of No. 43 on Monday.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Earlier this season, Dimitrov captured 5th and 6th ATP titles respectively at Brisbane (d. Thiem, Raonic and Nishikori) and Sofia (d. Goffin)
• Dimitrov broke back into Top 10 of Emirates ATP Rankings on July 17 for the first time since February 23, 2015

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Rafael Nadal remains on course to lift a record 31st ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown and second Cincinnati title on Friday by reaching the Western & Southern Open quarter-finals.

The top seed and 2013 champion knocked out his Spanish compatriot Albert Ramos-Vinolas 7-6(1), 6-2 in one hour and 38 minutes mid-afternoon at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. He will now rest and prepare to meet Australian Nick Kyrgios later today. Nadal leads 2-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, ahead of their first hard-court meeting.

“I’m very happy to be in the quarter-finals,” said Nadal. “It was a tough match this afternoon against Albert, and now [it will be] another very, very difficult match against Kyrgios. So I just need to be ready, to play my best. The only way to try to have success in that match against Nick is just playing aggressive and play very focused all the time, and, of course play at a great level of tennis.”

Ramos-Vinolas held his own in the first set, using his powerful forehand to pierce Nadal’s defence. But the World No. 24, who was seeking his first win in his fourth meeting against Nadal, paid the price for attacking Nadal’s forehand. Ramos-Vinolas saved one set point at 4-5, Ad-out, with a forehand winner under pressure, but he crumbled in the tie-break.

Nadal recovered from 0/40 at 1-2, with three service winners, then broke Ramos-Vinolas in the next game and then again for a 5-2 lead. He finished by hitting a forehand winner.

Nadal, who has now won 22 sets in a row against Spanish players, will begin his fourth stint at No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on Monday. The 31 year old has compiled an ATP World Tour best 49-8 match record in 2017, including four titles from seven finals.

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Nick Kyrgios hung tough on Friday as he began a double shift at the Western & Southern Open. The Australian advanced to his third ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final (also Indian Wells and Miami) of the year by finding a way past Ivo Karlovic of Croatia in a 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-3 victory over one hour and 56 minutes. The pair began today with Karlovic leading 4-3 in the first set, following rain on Thursday.

Kyrgios will now play top seed and 2013 champion Rafael Nadal or Albert Ramos-Vinolas later today for a place in the semi-finals. Kyrgios trails Nadal 1-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, but the pair has never met on hard courts. He leads Ramos-Vinolas 2-1 (1-1 on hard courts).

Karlovic broke Kyrgios in the final game of the first set and looked in a good serving rhythm (28 aces, losing 11 first-service points in total) before his Australian opponent made inroads on return, with clever low placement. Kyrgios led 5/2 in the tie-break, but Karlovic came close to a 6/5 advantage but for striking a forehand volley wide when lunging for the ball. Kyrgios maintained his composure in the decider and sealed the crucial break in the fourth game. Although Kyrgios could not convert two match points on Karlovic’s serve at 5-2, he closed out to love in the next game for his 24th match win of the season.

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View FedEx ATP Head2Head matchups for Day 6 of the Western & Southern Open and vote for who you think will win!
Nadal vs. Ramos-Vinolas | Isner vs. Donaldson | Dimitrov vs. Sugita

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• It took Rafael Nadal a record 160 weeks to rise from No. 2 to No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on August 18, 2008. Nine years later, Nadal is back at the same event on the same day of the week that he became the top men’s tennis player in the world. Nadal defeated Nicolas Lapentti in the Western & Southern Open quarter-finals on Friday, August 1, 2008 to guarantee that he would pass Roger Federer in the rankings later that month. The Spaniard clinched the No. 1 ranking once again in Cincinnati this week when Federer withdrew from the tournament due to a back injury.

• For Nadal to return to the Cincinnati semi-finals, he must defeat fellow Spanish left-hander Albert Ramos-Vinolas this afternoon and either Nick Kyrgios or Ivo Karlovic this evening. Karlovic led Kyrgios 4-3 and the Spaniards had not begun their third-round match when rain ended play on Thursday. Should Karlovic beat Kyrgios, the 38-year-old will be the oldest Cincinnati quarter-finalist in the Open Era and the oldest ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finalist since the series started in 1990.

• Already in the quarter-finals are Americans John Isner and Jared Donaldson, who will meet on Center Court. Isner is facing a #NextGenATP American wild card for the third straight round after eliminating Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe in straight sets. The No. 14 seed, who has ended five consecutive years as the USA No. 1, is 7-1 overall against his #NextGenATP countrymen, losing only to Ernesto Escobedo in the 2017 Houston quarter-finals. Donaldson defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili on Thursday for his first win in 14 Round of 16 matches on the ATP World Tour.

• In other quarter-final matches, 2016 Cincinnati semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov meets first-time ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finalist Yuichi Sugita. All five of Sugita’s ATP Masters 1000 victories have come in Cincinnati. On Grandstand, No. 3 seed Dominic Thiem takes on the only remaining player other than Nadal to have won an ATP Masters 1000 title: 2012 Paris champion David Ferrer.

Since 2008, the best returner in the game has either been Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal.

Those two players have finished atop the Infosys ATP Return Games Won LEADERBOARD every year for the past nine seasons, but neither of them are currently first in 2017.

The surprise package who is dominating on the return side of the equation so far this year is Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman.

Schwartzman, 24, boasts his career best Emirates ATP Ranking of No. 33 this week, primarily driven by winning a tour-leading 36 per cent (192/532) of his return games. Nadal is in second place winning 34 per cent (212/626), while Djokovic is in fourth place, winning 31 per cent (141/461).

At 5’7”, 141 lbs, Schwartzman plays a big game when returning serve, being ranked in the leading five players in all four of the Infosys Return Ratings. He is ranked just 61st this season on tour with Service Games Won, at 68 per cent (358/523).

2017 Infosys Return Ratings

Schwartzman has a 24-20 record so far in 2017, scoring his biggest win last week in Montreal, taking out No. 7 ranked Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-7(7), 7-5 in the Round of 32. Thiem only won 29 per cent (16/56) of his second serve points for the match, being broken six times.

When Schwartzman is receiving this season with the opponent serving with new balls, he is winning an impressive 40 per cent (20/50) of those games. Nadal, by comparison, is only winning 26 per cent (18/68) against new balls.

Schwartzman does slightly better breaking serve in the Ad court, winning 46 per cent (150/324) of his break points there, and 42 per cent (42/100) in the Deuce court.

When he barely gets ahead 0/15 in his opponent’s service games this season, the Argentine is actually favoured to win the game, winning a remarkable 57 per cent (127/224). At 15/30, the percentage chance to break elevates to 60 per cent (93/154), and at 0/30 it jumps all the way up to a 79 per cent (74/94) possibility to break.

The Buenos Aires native has just 10 Emirates ATP Rankings points to defend from the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati and the upcoming US Open, so look for him to keep setting personal bests in the coming weeks.

Last year’s doubles finalists Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau continued their strong run of form at the Western & Southern Open, securing their spot in the quarter-finals.

Rojer and Tecau, the 2015 Nitto ATP Finals champs, have not dropped a set through two matches this week in Cincinnati, completing a 7-5, 6-3 upset of sixth seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram on Thursday. The Dutch-Romanian duo, who finished runners-up to Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo in last year’s final, are bidding for their second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title as a team (Madrid 2016). They will next face third seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares for a spot in the last four.

In other action, Montreal champs Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut kicked off their quest for back-to-back Masters 1000 crowns with a 3-6, 7-6(5), 10-5 comeback win over countrymen Fabrice Martin and Edouard Roger-Vasselin. The last time a doubles team completed the Canada-Cincinnati double was just one year ago when Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo claimed both titles. Herbert and Mahut will battle five-time champs Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan next.

Also moving into the quarter-finals on Thursday were seventh seeds and Montreal finalists Rohan Bopanna and Ivan Dodig. They overcame a set deficit to defeat Juan Sebastian Cabal and Fabio Fognini 5-7, 7-5, 10-8. The Indian-Croatian tandem will battle second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo on Friday.

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A maiden ATP World Tour title, first Grand Slam match win, career-high Emirates ATP Ranking and now a first Masters 1000 quarter-final. If you ask Yuichi Sugita if he’s playing the best tennis of his career, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

Japanese tennis has been on the rise over the past decade, thanks in large part to Kei Nishikori’s Top 5 breakthrough and statement as one of the game’s most formidable threats. The nation has also experienced a surge of Top 100 stalwarts, including Yoshihito Nishioka, Taro Daniel, Go Soeda and Tatsuma Ito, but none of Nishikori’s countrymen have experienced the success that 28-year-old Sugita is enjoying in 2017.

“Many players are having their good results after 28 or even 30,” Sugita told ATPWorldTour.com. “Actually I’m not so surprised about this, because tennis takes more time to reach your top level. I kept trying and I’m going to keep going.

“[My ranking] is big news for Japan, but we have Kei, so actually it’s not as big news as him! But it’s good. And he’s a good player. He’s the revolution for Japan. I’m really just trying to do the best I can. His results have helped me a lot to improve my ranking.”

On the heels of a first ATP World Tour title in Antalya and an impressive three ATP Challenger Tour crowns, in Yokohama, Shenzhen and Surbiton, the Sendai native is breaking new ground in rising to a career-high No. 43 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. It is the second-highest position of any Japanese player in history, behind only Nishikori.

In beating Adrian Mannarino for the Antalya Open title, Sugita also became just the third player from Japan to ever win on the ATP World Tour, alongside Nishikori and Shuzo Matsuoka. He describes the moment as a huge honour.

“This year I won three Challengers in Japan, China and England,” added Sugita. “After that I was really confident to play tournaments. It all happened so soon. After one Challenger in England, I went straight to Antalya and it’s been a big change. It didn’t feel like a big wall to make the Top 50. I’m happy.

“Antalya was a great week for me. It was my first semi-final and then I won the tournament. It was a great opportunity to play many good players. It was big news for Japan, because I’m the third player to win a title.

“So I’m very proud that I won my first title. For sure it was the most emotional moment in my career. I remember a lot of things. I’d played lower level tournaments for 10 years and I was just so happy to win an ATP title. When I go back to Japan, a lot of media come to the tennis court and ask a lot of things. I’m happy about that.”

I got it !!!!! This is my 3rd title of the year !!!

芝での初タイトル!!!
現在会場からアムステルダムに向かってます‼
次はATP250 !!
引き続きよろしくお願い致します。 pic.twitter.com/A65h63e0iL

— 杉田祐一 / Yuichi SUGITA (@sugitayuichi88) June 11, 2017

Sugita isn’t finished climbing in 2017 and he’s proving that his game translates to all surfaces. All three ATP World Tour quarter-finals this year have come on different surfaces. In addition to a quarter-final finish on the clay of Barcelona and title on the lawns of Antalya, he has battled into the last eight this week at the Western & Southern Open – his best result at a Masters 1000 event.

A first-round upset of 13th seed Jack Sock – his biggest career victory – has been followed by impressive comeback wins over Joao Sousa and Karen Khachanov. Next up: seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov on Friday.

“Every match is a great opportunity here for me in Cincinnati. It means a higher ranking for me and I’m just happy to stay on the tennis court. I’m trying to enjoy it and I’m really excited to play great players.”

What does Sugita say is the difference in 2017? What is his formula for success? The Japanese believes it has been an all-around balance, with changes in mindset proving to be most critical.

“[When I started playing] I needed to try a new game style for a small player. For me, I don’t have a big serve, so I needed to make a lot of returns and have quick reactions. Those are the most important things for me.

“Most of the changes were mental. Now I can keep the same level throughout three sets and the match… In general it is definitely a great year for me. I’ve tried to be positive and I’ve been careful with injuries. I have a good balance now: physically, mentally and technically. I feel good and I’m positive.”