Quietly and precisely, #NextGenATP American Jared Donaldson has climbed the Emirates ATP Race To Milan this season.

The 20-year-old right-hander began the season in 17^th place in the Race, which will determine seven of the eight 21-and-under players who compete at the Next Gen ATP Finals.

But this week, after making his second ATP World Tour quarter-final at the Chengdu Open (also 2017 Cincinnati), Donaldson is in sixth place, good enough to qualify for the inaugural event, to be held 7-11 November in Milan, if the Race ended today.

See Who’s Pushing Donaldson In Emirates ATP Race To Milan

“The thing that has allowed me to make the biggest strides is lots of quality matches throughout the entire year. I have had a great deal of exposure to ATP World Tour-level matches, which has allowed me to be not only a better player but a more consistent player,” Donaldson said.

“My serve has become more consistent and allowed me to be more aggressive on my service games. I have also returned well these past few months, which has allowed me to break serve more often and more easily. My game is centered around playing offensive tennis, so the better I serve, the quicker I can go on the offensive on rallies, which allows me to play dictating tennis.”

The American fell short in his bid to reach his first ATP World Tour semi-final, losing to eventual Chengdu champion Denis Istomin. But this season has featured steady and consistent improvement all year for Donaldson, who has averted the traditional path of a young ATP World Tour player in many ways.

As a youth, Donaldson was your prototypical American tennis player: Big serve and big forehand. But his father, Courtney, knew Jared would have to develop more of his game if he wanted to have success outside the indoor courts of Rhode Island, where the family lived.

So 14-year-old Jared Donaldson moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and trained among the likes of current ATP World Tour Argentines Diego Schwartzman, Guido Pella and Horacio Zeballos. The training included a regular fitness session with Schwartzman, who’s had his own breakout season this year, reaching a career-high No. 29 in the Emirates ATP Rankings.

The experience showed Donaldson what it takes to compete amongst the best in the world. “I was able to see from a really young age how professionals trained, what they did for fitness, recovery, how they trained for tennis,” Donaldson said. “That was the most important thing I took, was how to work really hard at a young age.”

Look at Donaldson’s coaching box for another example of how he’s bypassed the typical path. In the past four years, as some players have cycled through coaches bi-annually, Donaldson has had only two sets of experts by his side.

For three years, Donaldson worked with former American pro Taylor Dent. But in December, Taylor and Phil Dent moved from California, where Donaldson lives, to Texas. So the #NextGenATP star began working with two other former American pros, three-time ATP World Tour titlist Jan-Michael Gambill and former World No. 7 Mardy Fish, who works with Donaldson through the USTA. Donaldson said he has benefited from the continuity.

“The good thing about high-level coaches who have played, they see the game very similar. So it wasn’t like I went from Taylor telling me one thing and now JM and Mardy are telling me something completely different. It’s been a really good transition. I think they’ve added a lot to my game. Incremental tweaks but they mean a lot,” Donaldson said.

In particular, they’ve focused on Donaldson’s positioning on the court, he said. In the past, he tended to be more straight up and down when hitting, rather than lower to the ground so he could place the proper spin on the ball.

Read More: ATP FIrsts with Donaldson

“JM has really pushed me to make good decisions on the court and to get lower, and just continue to work on my serve and my movement and everything. I think he’s been a really good influence. And I think Mardy’s been a really good influence,” Donaldson said.

The American hopes the work pays off with a trip to Milan next month, but the down-to-Earth Donaldson also knows he can control only what he can control.

“I’m just honoured to be part of a group of young players who are playing amazing,” he said. “Whether I make it or whether I don’t, it would be really cool, I would love it… I just have to keep worrying about improving my game and trying to play good tennis. I feel like if I do that, I’m going to make it anyways.”

Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares edged a high-quality doubles semi-final on Friday to remain on course at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2017. Soares is now one match win away from 400 career victories.

Second seeds Murray and Soares scraped past Dominic Inglot and Daniel Nestor 6-7(3), 6-1, 11-9 in 87 minutes for a place in the Tokyo final.

Murray first served on match point at 9/8 in the Match tie-break, but Inglot poached for a superb backhand volley at close quarters. Two points later, on Murray and Soares’ second match point, Soares struck a crosscourt backhand lob to seal victory.

Murray and Soares move up one spot to No. 4 in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London, adding 120 points for a total of 4,460 points, as teams battle to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November.

Murray and Soares, the only seeds left in the field, have a 3-2 finals record this year (7-4 overall as a team). They await the winners of Santiago Gonzalez and Julio Peralta versus local wild cards Ben Mclachlan and Yasutaka Uchiyama, who play their semi-final on Saturday.

Isner/Sock Advance In Beijing

The unseeded American pairing of John Isner and Jack Sock continued to cause destruction in the China Open doubles draw on Friday. Isner/Sock knocked out Nitto ATP Finals hopefuls Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 6-7(5), 6-2, 10-6 to make the Beijing semi-finals.

Cabal/Farah had upset second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the first round and were looking to gain crucial points in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London. The Colombian team is 12th in the Race; the top eight teams qualify.

Isner/Sock, who won the 2016 Shanghai Rolex Masters together, started the week by ousting fourth seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic. In the semi-finals, Isner/Sock will meet either top seeds Henri Kontinen/John Peers or Italian Paolo Lorenzi and Mischa Zverev of Germany.

Twenty-year-old Alexander Zverev is set to make his debut at the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held 12-19 November at The O2 in London. A winner of two ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles this season, the German joins Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the 2017 field, leaving five places up for grabs with six weeks to go until the season-ending tournament.

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“It’s obviously a great event, playing in The O2 arena is something amazing for any player,” said Zverev, who attended the tournament in 2015 to receive his ATP Star of Tomorrow Award presented by Emirates. “The atmosphere is amazing. I’ll be ready for it. This shows me how well I played all over the season, how consistent I was and I think that’s something every player is very proud of.”

Zverev, who qualified by reaching the semi-finals at the China Open in Beijing, is the youngest player to clinch a berth at the season finale since a 20-year-old Juan Martin del Potro in 2008 and the first German singles qualifier since Rainer Schuettler in 2003.

One year since lifting his first ATP World Tour trophy at the St. Petersburg Open, Zverev has won five in 2017 – tied with Nadal and Federer for the most singles titles this season. With his triumphs on clay at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome (d. Djokovic) and on hard court at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal (d. Federer), he became the first player outside the ATP’s ‘Big Four’ to win multiple Masters 1000 titles in a season since David Nalbandian in 2007.

Zverev additionally won the ATP World Tour 500 title at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., and claimed a pair of ATP World Tour 250 titles – at the Open Sud de France in Montpellier and BMW Open by FWU in Munich. In Montpellier, he also teamed up with older brother Mischa Zverev to win the doubles title.

The Nitto ATP Finals welcomes more than 250,000 fans to The O2 arena each year, as well as generating a global TV viewership of more than 100 million, as the ATP’s best eight singles players and doubles teams compete over eight days at the biggest indoor tennis tournament in the world.

Rafael Nadal will look to get the better of a player hoping to join him at next month’s Nitto ATP Finals, Grigor Dimitrov, on Saturday in the China Open semi-finals. Nadal leads Dimitrov 8-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.

Top seed and 2005 champion Nadal, who is bidding to become year-end No. 1 for the fourth time (also 2008, 2010, 2013), knocked out sixth-seeded American John Isner 6-4, 7-6(0) to improve to a 23-5 mark at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in China.

Nadal broke Isner’s serve at 5-4 in the first set, then recovered from 15/40 in the second game of the second set before sweeping through the tie-break. The Spanish superstar is now an ATP World Tour-best 59-9 (32-7 on hard courts) in 2017 and continues his quest for a 75th tour-level crown.

Earlier in the day, Dimitrov further strengthened his bid for a spot at the Nitto ATP Finals – to be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November – by advancing to the Beijing semi-finals.

Dimitrov improved to 38-15 on the season after he defeated fifth seed Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-2 in the quarter-finals over two hours and 29 minutes.

The victory gives Dimitrov 90 points in Emirates ATP Race To London (now 3,275 points), but the Bulgarian remains in fifth position 440 points behind Austrian Dominic Thiem (3,715).

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Belgian David Goffin continued his rise up the Emirates ATP Race To London and into contention for a spot at the Nitto ATP Finals on Friday when he reached the semi-finals of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2017.

Fourth seed Goffin recovered from a 2-5 deficit in the first set and three set points to defeat 2007 finalist Richard Gasquet of France 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 38 minutes on an overcast and wet Friday in Tokyo. He will now prepare to face eighth-seeded Argentine Diego Schwartzman on Saturday.

Goffin, who began the week at No. 13 in the Emirates ATP Race To London, is now up to No. 11 and within just 15 points of No. 10-placed American Sam Querrey (2,345 points), who holds the final qualification spot for the season finale that will be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November. Querrey lost to Gasquet in the Tokyo first round.

Goffin was made to work hard against Gasquet, who led 3-2 when rain stopped play and, with the players remaining on court, the Ariake Colosseum roof began to close. At 5-3, Gasquet failed to convert a 40/0 lead and paid the price in a run of seven straight games for Goffin. The consistent Belgian broke for a fourth time at 3-1 in the second set and is now seven matches unbeaten — 47-18 overall on the season that includes last week’s Shenzhen Open title (d. Dolgopolov).

Schwartzman won the first match of the day to advance to his second ATP World Tour semi-final of the year. He lost just three points in his first seven service games en route to a 6-0, 7-5 victory over American Steve Johnson in one hour and 33 minutes. The diminutive 25 year old, who reached the last four at Istanbul (l. to Cilic) in May, is now 32-23 on the season.

World No. 46 Johnson, who had beaten second seed Dominic Thiem of Austria in the first round and Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov in the second round, received on-court treatment for a neck complaint after the third game. Although he took time to work his way into the match, incredibly he held one set point at 5-4, Advantage, in the second set when Schwartzman was serving. Schwartzman, who created 17 break point opportunities in the pair’s first tour-level meeting, held on and broke in the next game before ultimately closing out after six match point chances.

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