Reilly Opelka advanced to his second ATP Tour semi-final on clay on Friday at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, building on his first Houston victory to book a marquee matchup against Nick Kyrgios, who advanced via walkover.

The American was a 6-3, 7-5 winner over Dutch qualifier Gijs Brouwer, making it four sets in a row for the World No. 18 after he dropped the opening stanza of his campaign against countryman Mitchell Krueger. Opelka entered the ATP 250 event with an 0-4 main-draw record in Houston, with his last appearance in 2019. With the benefit of a first-round bye, he’s started his clay-court swing strongly on home soil.

“The bye weeks are nice, they really are, to come in a little later, have more time to prepare on the court,” he said. You get to take your time and that’s huge.”

Despite facing windy conditions and entering the match without a scouting report on his World No. 361 opponent, Opelka was able to power through the opening set behind an early break. But he had to battle back from 1-3 down in the second to match his semi-final effort on the clay of the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome last May.

Working for the weekend 💪 @ReillyOpelka gets past Brouwer 6-3 7-5 and will face Kyrgios in the Houston semi-finals.#USClay pic.twitter.com/Wh2ySdnymv

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) April 8, 2022

Kyrgios advanced before the start of play as Michael Mmoh’s withdrew with a right adductor strain. Saturday’s semi-final meeting will be their second ATP Head2Head matchup, with Opelka winning a three-setter in the opening round of the ATP Masters 1000 Toronto event in August. (Opelka went on to reach the Toronto final, losing to Daniil Medvedev.)

“Nick, you never know what you’re going to get,” the American said, looking ahead to the match against his friend. “I’ve got to serve better than the way I’ve been to beat that guy, for sure.”

Kyrgios, previewing Saturday’s match, added: “I’m excited to be in the semi-final against Reilly, someone who’s been playing extremely good for the last couple of years. Really finding his game style and executing.

“I’m just excited to go out there again in front of the Houston crowd.  The key is going to be serving well. We’ll see, it might come down to a couple of points.”

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Though neither man is known as a clay-court specialist, both have been in good form in Houston and both have reached multiple ATP Tour semi-finals on the surface, with Kyrgios through to that stage for the third time on clay.

“I think we’re both pretty comfortable in the clay, as it seems in this tournament,” the Aussie said. “I think Houston’s pretty good conditions for both of us.”

While Kyrgios will be playing in his first ATP Tour semi-final since August 2019, when he won the Washington title, Opelka will contest his fourth semi-final of the season as he seeks a second title of 2022.

All of the action from Houston can be seen on ESPN3 in the U.S., with both semi-finals scheduled for Saturday.

Slovakia’s Alex Molcan backed up his upset of Marrakech top seed Felix Auger-Aliassime with another three-set victory over sixth seed Botic van de Zandschulp on Friday at the Grand Prix Hassan II.

After beating the Canadian in a third-set tie-break, Molcan scored a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Van de Zandschulp to reach his second ATP Tour semi-final. After getting broken twice in the opening set, the Slovak did not face a break point in the last two stanzas. 

“Botic is a really good player so I knew it was going to be really tough,” Molcan said post-match. “He was playing very fast with an amazing serve. 

“In the second set I was trying to stay focused on the game and to play every point and of course try to win. It went as I planned it. The third set was a battle of course.”

Alex Molcan completes the SF line-up ✅

🇸🇰 Molcan vs Djere 🇷🇸
🇦🇷 Coria vs Goffin 🇧🇪#Marrakech #GrandPrixHassanII pic.twitter.com/yGOFkyyzgz

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) April 8, 2022

The 24-year-old’s previous tour-level semi-final appearance came in 2021 at the Belgrade 2 event, where he qualified and earned his first four ATP Tour wins before losing to home favourite Novak Djokovic in the final. Molcan’s quarter-final opponent also has history going deep as a qualifier, with Botic making his breakthrough run to the 2021 US Open quarter-finals after qualifying.

Molcan is making his Marrakech debut at a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 65, and is now set to break into the Top 60 following his semi-final run.

He will face eighth seed Laslo Djere in the semi-finals, after the Serbian secured a 6-3, 6-2 win over #NextGenATP star Lorenzo Musetti. The 26-year-old is through to his first tour-level semi-final of the 2022 season thanks to a strong performance in the closing stages of both sets.

After saving the first three break points of the match, Djere took the lone break of the opening set in the sixth game. He then trailed 0-2 in the second before rattling off six games on the trot to seal his progress.  He broke serve four times in 12 chances, converting in all four games in which he had break points.

In the opposite half of the draw, David Goffin and Federico Coria each came back from a set down to reach the semi-finals.

Goffin got past Roberto Carballes Baena, 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-0, defeating the Spaniard for the second time in as many tournaments following his win in the Miami opening round. The former World No. 7 is through to his first ATP Tour semi-final in over a year, since he won the 2021 Montpellier title.

After coming back from a set down against Pablo Andujar to earn his 300th tour-level win on Thursday, Goffin kept that number ticking up with a repeat performance against Andujar’s countryman.

“It’s already a good week but it’s not over yet,” said the Belgian. “We try to go for more. It’s another long match against a Spaniard on the clay.

“I felt that today I had everything in my racquet to be aggressive and to make damage during the rallies,” he assessed. “That’s what I did at the beginning of the second set. It gave me some confidence to continue and to stay mentally in the match. When I won the second set with a good service game to finish it, it gave me even more confidence to start well in the third. And then I was just playing better and better.”

Argentina’s Coria also dropped an opening-set tie-break in a 6-7(1), 6-1, 6-4 win over Richard Gasquet. Sitting at a career-high ATP Ranking of World No. 60, the Marrakech debutant was down an early break in the final set but closed out the win by taking six of the last eight games, including the last three in a row from 3-4, closing out with a love hold.

The 30-year-old Coria and the 31-year-old Goffin will open their ATP Head2Head series in Saturday’s semis.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic returns to action at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, but the two-time champion will have to negotiate a difficult path if he wants to add a third Monte-Carlo title to his collection following the release of the draw Friday.

The 34-year-old could face #NextGenATP Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in a blockbuster quarter-final at the ATP Masters 1000 event, with Indian Wells titlist Taylor Fritz also in his quarter.

Djokovic, who opens against Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or American Marcos Giron, has never played Alcaraz, who arrives in Monte-Carlo high in confidence following his title run at the Miami Open presented by Itau. The eighth seed is making his debut at the clay-court event and will begin against Sebastian Korda or Botic van de Zandschulp. Alcaraz is 18-2 on the season, having also triumphed on clay in Rio de Janeiro.

American Fritz earned the biggest title of his career when he ended Rafael Nadal’s unbeaten start to the season to win the trophy in California last month. The 10th seed will play wild card Lucas Catarina in the first round, with French wild card Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Croatian Marin Cilic awaiting next. 

In the bottom half of the draw, reigning champion Stefanos Tsitsipas will start his title defence against Italian former champ Fabio Fognini or Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech, with Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime seeded to meet the Greek in the quarter-finals.

Third seed Tsitsipas downed Andrey Rublev to clinch his maiden Masters 1000 crown last year and will be aiming to regain top form this week after losing to Alcaraz in the fourth round in Miami at the end of March.

Meanwhile, Auger-Aliassime has won just one match since he clinched the title in Rotterdam and reached the final in Marseille at the end of February. The sixth seed, who is making his fourth appearance in Monte-Carlo, will play #NextGenATP Italian Lorenzo Musetti or Benoit Paire in his opening match. Musetti flourished on clay last season, advancing to the semi-finals in Lyon, before he advanced to the fourth round at Roland Garros. 

Second seed Alexander Zverev is in the same half of the draw as Tsitsipas and the same quarter as Rublev. The German could face the returning Stan Wawrinka in the third round if Zverev can overcome Federico Delbonis or a qualifier and Wawrinka can pass tests against Alexander Bublik and then Pablo Carreno Busta or a qualifier in the second round.

Former World No. 3 Wawrinka lifted the trophy in Monte-Carlo in 2014, but has not competed at a tour-level event since Doha last March. In a stacked bottom quarter, Italian Jannik Sinner will also pose a danger, with the ninth seed opening against Croatian Borna Coric. The 20-year-old, who has reached three tour-level quarter-finals in 2022, is seeded to meet Rublev in the last eight, with the 24-year-old opening against Australian Alex de Minaur or a qualifier.

Fourth seed Casper Ruud is in the top half of the draw and is a potential semi-finalist opponent for Djokovic. The Norwegian has captured six ATP 250 titles on clay and reached his first ATP Masters 1000 final last week in Miami. Ruud, who reached the Monte-Carlo and Madrid semi-finals last season, will begin his campaign against Aslan Karatsev or a qualifier and may play seventh seed Cameron Norrie or Pole Hubert Hurkacz in the last eight.

Norrie, who climbed into the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday, will open against Tallon Griekspoor or Albert Ramos-Vinolas, while Hurkacz faces dynamic Frenchman Gael Monfils.

After a hugely successful month of March on the U.S. coasts, Taylor Fritz showed that his big game is also a perfect fit for Texas.

On Thursday at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, the World No. 13 American made a winning clay-court debut for the season with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Alejandro Tabilo. Fresh off his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in Indian Wells and a fourth-round run in Miami, Fritz got up and running on the Houston clay by taking the first four games of the match, then closed out the contest with his fifth break of the contest.

“I felt like tonight was going to be a really tough match, given he’s done really well on clay,” Fritz said of his Houston opener. “It was my first match [on clay]. I’m pretty happy with how I played. I can’t complain, I got out of that pretty solid.”

Coming in hot 🔥 @Taylor_Fritz97 sprints past Tabilo 6-1 6-4 in just 62 minutes 😯 #USClay pic.twitter.com/KVXmwrJLU2

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) April 8, 2022

Chile’s Tabilo, who has played exclusively on clay since February, reached his first ATP Tour quarter-final as a qualifier in Cordoba and later advanced to the Santiago semi-finals. He entered Houston following a final run at the ATP Challenger Tour event in Santiago in March.

But Fritz dominated his World No. 100 early, and led by a set and a break before the Tabilo made his charge midway through set two. Down 0-3 in the second set, Tabilo began to settle in, cutting down on his errors to bring the set to 4-4. 

The American avoided any late drama by reasserting himself and taking the last two fames of the match.

He hit just a few drop shots over the course of the one-hour encounter, but said post-match that he’s working on adding that tactic for the clay swing: “It’s definitely something I need to bring into my game because I back people up so much on the groundstrokes,” he explained, before stating that his goals for the season include breaking into the Top 10 and qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals.

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Earlier in Houston, a pair of seeded players fought back from a set down to advance. Defending champion Cristian Garin — Fritz’s quarter-final opponent — shook off a slow start to defeat Australia’s Jordan Thompson, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. Entering the event on a five-match losing streak, the fifth seed has now come from behind in back-to-back matches on the red clay.

Sixth seed Frances Tiafoe went the distance against Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas to earn a 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(4) victory over the course of two hours, 40 minutes. The American served from the opening set at 5-4, but dropped three straight games as the six-time ATP Tour champion Cuevas took the initiative and began to push him back in the rallies.

Tiafoe again failed to serve out the set at 5-4 in the second, but was able to reclaim his advantage by breaking serve on his fifth break chance of a four-deuce game — the longest of the match. There were no break chances in the decider, but the American put his stamp on the do-or-die tie-break by winning four straight points from 2-2. He closed the match out on his third match point.

All the action from the Houston ATP 250 event can be seen on ESPN3 in the U.S.

Australian Open finalists Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell are one win away from their second tour-level final of the season after a dominant win Thursday in Houston.

The Aussies swept past Nicholas Monroe and Fernando Romboli, 6-2, 6-2, to reach the final four at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship. It was an identical scoreline to their first-round victory over the American pairing of Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey.

Ebden and Purcell converted on four of their six break chances in the match while saving all five break points against them.

Twin brothers Ivan Sabanov and Matej Sabanov scored the upset of the day in Houston, knocking out third seeds Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock, 6-4, 6-2. They’ll face William Blumberg and Max Schnur in the semi-finals, after they won an all-American matchup against Robert Galloway and Jackson Withrow.

In the Marrakech quarter-finals, top seeds Andrey Golubev and Fabrice Martin were 6-3, 7-6(4) winners over Elliot Benchetrit and Lamine Ouahab. After surviving a Match Tie-break in the opening round against Dutchmen Tallon Griekspoor and Botic van de Zandschulp, the Kazakh/French duo dominated on serve Thursday, winning 82 per cent of first serve points and not allowing a break point.

They will face Andrea Vavassori and Jan Zielinski in the Grand Prix Hassan II semis, after the Meixcan/Polish duo defeated Guillermo Duran and Federico Delbonis, 3-6, 7-6(7), 10-3. The opposite semi-final will see Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez take on Aleksandr Nedovyesov and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi.

Matteo Berrettini’s right-hand injury will sideline him for longer than first thought, the Italian World No. 6 announced on Thursday. After reaching the fourth round in Indian Wells, the Italian withdrew from Miami and underwent a minor operation on a right-hand injury in late March. 

“Following advice from the medical experts, my team and I have decided that it is crucial I do not put time pressure on my recovery process,” Berrettini said in a post on his Instagram account.

Berrettini has now confirmed that he will miss the bulk of the European clay swing, pulling out of the ATP Masters 1000 events in Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome. That timeline will leave him out of action through mid-May.

“Withdrawing from these events, particularly Rome, was an extremely tough decision, however it is the right one to ensure many more years of competing at the highest level for the biggest trophies,” he added.

The 25-year-old reached the Madrid final in 2021, losing to Alexander Zverev in three sets, and reached the third round in his hometown tournament in Rome. 

Berrettini, who has won three of his five ATP Tour titles on clay, has played just one event on the surface to date in 2022 — when he lost to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz in the Rio de Janeiro quarter-finals, a reversal of their five-set Australian Open third-round thriller, won by the Italian.

Berrettini concluded his Instagram message on a positive note: “My recovery process is on track and I look forward to seeing you on court soon,” he wrote.

 

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