World number two Naomi Osaka loses in Cincinnati Masters third round
World number two Naomi Osaka suffers a surprise third-round defeat to Swiss wildcard Jil Teichmann at the Cincinnati Masters.
World number two Naomi Osaka suffers a surprise third-round defeat to Swiss wildcard Jil Teichmann at the Cincinnati Masters.
Casper Ruud is known for his clay-court prowess, but the Norwegian can make a hard-court statement on Friday in the Western & Southern Open quarter-finals.
The eighth seed will play Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Alexander Zverev for a spot in the last four in Cincinnati. Neither man had previously won a match at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre, but one will move to within two victories of the trophy.
It is an important match for Ruud in the FedEx ATP Race To Turin. Entering the week, the 22-year-old was in eighth place as he pursues a maiden appearance at the Nitto ATP Finals in November. The 360 points that would come with a semi-final berth would give him breathing room ahead Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, who lost Thursday, and draw him closer to seventh-placed Rafael Nadal.
Ruud has now made at least the quarter-finals at four consecutive ATP Masters 1000 events he has played, including two in a row on hard courts. But the winner of four titles this season — all of which have come on clay — will face a stiff test against Zverev, who has not lost a set this week.
The German began his run with an 0-6 record at the Western & Southern Open. But Zverev has found his rhythm on the quick, high-bouncing courts in Cincinnati, taking advantage of his booming serve to put pressure on his opponents throughout the tournament.
“I hope the story has passed me and I can win many more here,” Zverev said in his on-court interview after dispatching Argentine lefty Guido Pella on Thursday. “Obviously I’ve had tough times here, but I’m happy to be here and I feel like I’m playing well. I’m feeling well and that’s the most important thing.”
[FOLLOW 1000]Zverev, the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals champion, began the week in sixth place in the Race. He has won eight consecutive matches and his confidence is showing in his aggressive play. The winner will play the winner of second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and #NextGenATP Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime for a spot in the championship match.
From their junior days until early in their ATP Head2Head rivalry, Auger-Aliassime had Tsitsipas’ number. But the Greek star has won four consecutive matches against Felix to take a 4-2 lead in their series.
“[Felix] knows my game better than any opponent out there. We have been playing [each other] since the age of 12,” Tsitsipas said after a three-set victory against Auger-Aliassime in Acapulco this year. “I wasn’t the one winning in the beginning, but it is great that I have developed into the player that I am and he has done an unbelievable improvement. [It is] always a challenge facing him. We do have a history and I really hope that we build a rivalry that is going to be much remembered in ATP Tour history.”
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
On the other half of the draw, top seed Daniil Medvedev will try to continue his impressive play against Pablo Carreno Busta in what promises to be a baseline battle.
Medvedev is confident after lifting his fourth Masters 1000 trophy last week in Toronto, but Carreno Busta is no stranger to hard-court success. The Spaniard is a two-time US Open semi-finalist who showed good form in taking out Miami champion Hubert Hurkacz in two tie-breaks on Thursday.
World No. 2 Medvedev will have revenge on his mind, as Carreno Busta just defeated Medvedev in straight sets in the Olympic quarter-finals and went on to win the bronze medal. The Russian leads their ATP Head2Head series 3-2, including a triumph in this year’s Mallorca semi-finals.
The winner will face Russian Andrey Rublev or resurgent Frenchman Benoit Paire. It will be an interesting clash of styles in their first tour-level meeting, as Rublev blasts the ball without hesitation, while Paire uses various spins, feel and is unafraid of coming to net to finish points.
Felix Auger-Aliassime continues to expunge the disappointment of his opening-round exit on home soil in Toronto last week by charging deeper into the draw at the Western & Southern Open. On Thursday night the Canadian defeated close friend and World No. 8 Matteo Berrettini 6-4, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournament.
“Today I played a great match. At some points he didn’t play his best level but on the court you have to deal with different situations and I was able to find my way through,” Auger-Aliassime said.
The World No. 17 on Friday will play second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas as he attempts to reach his second semi-final at this level (Miami 2019).
Playing his first event since missing the Tokyo Olympics with a thigh injury, Berrettini looked below peak fitness and had additional strapping applied to his generously taped left leg after the seventh game of the first set. The Wimbledon finalist’s plight was not helped by him labouring on average for two and a half minutes longer on his service games in the first than his opponent and by him offering up eight break point opportunities.
[FOLLOW 1000]After breaking Berrettini for the second time to clinch the first set, Auger-Aliassime broke the Italian’s opening service game and from there chartered a smooth course towards his first win in three ATP Head2Head meetings and his sixth win over a Top 10 player.
Felix v. Stef ?
?? @felixtennis sets up a QF with Stefanos Tsitsipas after beating Berrettini 6-4, 6-3. #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/bBEQ8dMC7x
— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 20, 2021
The 21-year-old is 16th in the FedEx ATP Race to Turin and needs to produce big results at the remaining Masters 1000s and US Open to climb into contention for one of seven remaining spots at the Nitto ATP Finals. Coming into this week, he had a modest 4-8 record at the Masters 1000 level dating back to the Tour resumption in August last year.
But he improved to 28-17 on the year Thursday night and has designs on pushing beyond his career-high FedEx ATP Ranking of No. 15 on Monday by continuing his charge at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre.
Auger-Aliassime now turns his focus to his seventh ATP Head2Head meeting with Tsitsipas, who has won the past four battles to lead the rivalry 4-2. “He’s a great rival and tomorrow will be another great battle. From here on it will be top, top players.”
Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to his fifth ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final of the season Thursday night with a fighting win over Italian Lorenzo Sonego at the Western & Southern Open. The Greek notched a Tour-leading 47th match win of the season with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 victory to set a Friday quarter-final with Matteo Berrettini or Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“He was going for every single shot and his footwork was close to unbelievable,” Tsitsipas said. “He can do damage against high-ranked players. Things got really difficult in a few moments but I stayed there and waited for the opportunity to present itself.”
The emotion of a victory. @steftsitsipas #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/Kbg9kh5YsE
— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 20, 2021
Tsitsipas had not won a match at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre before this week, although he did reach last year’s semi-finals when the tournament was played in New York due to the pandemic.
Sonego stunned the second seed with an explosive opening set in which he hit 15 winners to three unforced errors and by winning 87 per cent of first-serve points.
[FOLLOW 1000]In the first game of the second set, Tsitsipas dug himself out of a 0/40 hole for just the fifth time of the year and broke Sonego in the next game to steal the momentum. The former Nitto ATP Finals champion took a more aggressive posture inside the baseline and won 11 of 13 net approaches.
The Greek also broke the 26-year-old World No. 27 in the first game of the third set and never relinquished his stranglehold on the match as Sonego didn’t get a sniff at a break point in the decider.
“That was a game changer,” Tsitsipas said of the hold in the first game of the second set. “After finding my game from that part of the match onwards, things started working pretty well for me. The psychology kind of changed and I was having that fighting spirit and not letting go was very crucial.”
Both players had clean stats sheets, with Tsitsipas boasting 24 winners to 15 unforced errors and Sonego 35 winners to 20 unforced errors. But the Greek’s edge in winning 31 of 51 points of five-to-nine-shot duration proved decisive.
Top seeds Daniil Medvedev and Ashleigh Barty are among the big names through to the quarter-finals in Cincinnati.
Olympic gold medallist Alexander Zverev extended his winning streak to eight matches and raced into the quarter-finals of the Western & Southern Open with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Argentine Guido Pella Thursday.
The World No. 5 dropped just four points on his first serve and did not face a break point in the one-hour, 13-minute victory. The German said that he is relishing the fast conditions in Cincinnati.
“It’s the fastest court I have played on the whole year. In the first match I was struggling a little with rhythm and timing, but it does suit me with my serve and the power I have, when I decide to use it. Today I felt good out there,” Zverev told Tennis Channel.
[FOLLOW 1000]“For me it’s more about how high the ball bounces, not the speed of the court. That’s maybe why I struggle on grass courts maybe than other surfaces. I’m a tall guy and I need the height to hit through the court. That’s why I’ve won three Masters Series on clay and made the semis of the French Open this year. I’ve also had success on hard courts.”
The 2020 US Open finalist, who is seeking his fifth Masters 1000 title, had not won a match in six prior appearances at the event. This year’s Masters 1000 champion in Madrid will next face World No. 11 Casper Ruud, who has now made the quarter-finals or better in his past four outings at this level.
A semi-finalist this year in Monte-Carlo and Madrid, the Norwegian continues to press his hard-court credentials – and his claim to a maiden berth at the Nitto ATP Finals – by beating Diego Schwartzman 6-4, 6-3 to reach his second Masters 1000 quarter-final in as many weeks. Before his run to the last eight in Toronto last week, Ruud had never won a hard-court match at the Masters 1000 level.
Rightly known for his clay-court prowess, which reaped three consecutive titles after Wimbledon, Ruud is quietly building his street cred on hard courts. The 22-year-old, who claimed his 100th career match win in the second round this week, reached the fourth round of the Australian Open and the quarter-finals of Acapulco before missing the Miami Open through injury.
Against Schwartzman, Ruud did not face a break point and dropped just three points on his first serve. Ruud is eighth in the FedEx ATP Race To Turin, and will pull further away from ninth-placed Hubert Hurkacz, who fell today in the third round to Olympic bronze medallist Pablo Carreno Busta 7-6(6), 7-6(3)
World No. 7 Andrey Rublev continued his love affair with the Lindner Family Tennis Centre Thursday when he claimed a dramatic 7-6(2), 7-6(5) win over Gael Monfils to charge into the quarter-finals of the Western & Southern Open.
“It was super tough. It was really humid,” Rublev said. “Gael was running super fast and it’s impossible to play short rallies with him. If you try to shoot every ball you will miss most of them and the match will be over in half an hour. So you need to take your time, stay in the rally and wait for the right moment.”
Rublev was No. 70 in the FedEx ATP Rankings when he last played in Cincinnati and came through qualifying to topple Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer to reach the semi-finals. Last year, he fell in the first round when the tournament was played in New York due to the pandemic. Returning to Ohio this year as one of the world’s leading players and positioned fifth in the FedEx ATP Race To Turin, Rublev is looking to ride his good vibes at the traditional venue to claim his first Masters 1000 title.
Rublev won all 23 first-serve points in the first set as neither player earned a break point. But it was a different story in the second set, which began with four straight breaks and featured six breaks overall heading into the tie-break.
[FOLLOW 1000]The second set also had additional drama. Troubled by his left knee, Monfils sat down at 0-1 and then was visited by ATP physio Paul Ness at 1-all. He also threw up into a courtside garbage can. After a six-minute delay, Monfils and Rublev exchanged words but the encounter ended with a friendly handshake before play resumed.
Monfils played ultra-aggressively in the second, working into position to serve for the set at 5-3 and to hold a set point on Rublev’s serve at 5-4. But at 5/5 in the tie-break Rublev nailed a down-the-line backhand winner after an athletic point to set up match point, which he cashed in when Monfils double faulted.
Rublev advances to play Frenchman Benoit Paire, who broke John Isner three times in the final set en route to a 7-6(1), 6-7(2), 6-1 victory that takes him to his first Masters 1000 quarter-final since his semi-final run in Rome in 2013.
Daniil Medvedev’s dominant hard-court form in North America continued Thursday. The top seed overcome Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 6-3 at the Western & Southern Open to extend his winning streak to seven matches and reach the quarter-finals in Cincinnati.
The Russian is aiming to complete a Cincinnati-Toronto double this week, after defeating Reilly Opelka to capture his fourth ATP Masters 1000 crown at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers on Sunday.
”It was tough, especially in the second set,” Medvedev said in his on-court interview. “I had four break points before I broke him. I knew I had to continue to push him. Grigor is an amazing player, but a little bit worse on the backhand, and I like when people slice, so that was a tactic to try to put pressure on him there. Of course, [I] mixed it up with the forehand sometimes and it seemed to work really well.
“What makes it tough [on the Cincinnati-Toronto double], it is two weeks in a row against the best players in the world. I am still young, healthy and feeling 100 per cent, so that is why I want to try and do it.”
The 25-year-old dictated from the baseline with his flat powerful groundstrokes, breaking the Bulgarian three times to advance in one hour and 30 minutes. Medvedev now leads Dimitrov 3-1 in their ATP Head2Head Series and will next face either ninth seed Hubert Hurkacz or Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta.
[FOLLOW 1000]Medvedev, No. 2 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, has fond memories from Cincinnati, having lifted his first Masters 1000 title in Ohio in 2019. The 12-time tour-level titlist has also captured trophies on grass in Mallorca and hard in Marseille this season and guided Russia to the ATP Cup title in February.
In a lively start, breaks were exchanged as Dimitrov caused Medvedev problems, pulling the Russian around the court with his variety of shots. However, Medvedev quickly raised his level, hitting with consistent depth to move 5-2 ahead in the first set. He then sealed the opener with one of the seven aces he hit in the match.
After Dimitrov fended off two break points in the first and fifth games in the second set, Medvedev, who took a tumble at the start of the set, finally broke to lead 4-3 as his pressure paid off. The Russian continued to play deep behind the baseline, soaking up Dimitrov’s groundstrokes to secure his victory.
Dimitrov, who captured his lone Masters 1000 trophy in Cincinnati in 2017, defeated Roberto Bautista Agut and Alexander Bublik en route to the third round. The 30-year-old now holds an 18-9 record in Ohio.
Did You Know?
Medvedev is aiming to become just the seventh male player to capture the Cincinnati-Toronto double in the Open Era. Cliff Richey, Eddie Dibbs, Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter, Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal have all achieved this.
American Varvara Lepchenko has been provisionally suspended for an anti-doping rule violation, the International Tennis Federation has confirmed.
British pair Andy Murray and Daniel Evans have accepted wild cards into next week’s Winston-Salem Open, a hard-court ATP 250 event, the tournament announced on Thursday.
Former World No. 1 Murray competed at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati this week in just his fifth tour-level singles event of the season, falling to Hubert Hurkacz in the second round.
Murray, who reached the third round at Wimbledon in July, will be making his second appearance in North Carolina, having also played in 2019. The 46-time tour-level titlist will feature alongside Evans, who will be aiming to snap a four-match losing streak in his opening match at the Winston-Salem Open.
Evans won his first ATP Tour title at the Murray River Open in Melbourne in February and will be making his third appearance at the ATP 250 event.
Other ATP stars competing in a stacked field in North Carolina include #NextGenATP talents Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Musetti, former World No. 3 Marin Cilic, Australia’s Nick Kyrgios and 2019 quarter-finalist Frances Tiafoe.
