Reilly Opelka put on a serving masterclass in last year’s New York Open, firing 156 aces throughout the week to secure his maiden ATP Tour title. The third-seeded American appears primed for another big serving display this year, landing 20 aces on Thursday to defeat Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4, 6-4.

The 22-year-old grabbed the lone break in each set to reach the quarter-finals after 76 minutes. Opelka picked up his first win of the season after suffering tight first-round defeats in Adelaide and the Australian Open.

Read More: Opelka Talks Fashion & New York State Of Mind

Next up for the defending champion is qualifier Jason Jung, who continued his inspired tennis at this event to upset seventh-seeded Brit Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4. Both of Jung’s ATP Tour quarter-finals, and four of his six ATP Tour main draw wins, have come in New York.

The 30-year-old from Chinese Taipei also showed the benefits of his grueling off-season. Jung effortlessly tracked down heavy shots from Norrie throughout the match that would be winners against many players. 

“I felt like my legs let me down a few times in big matches last year that could have had a greater impact on my year-end [FedEx ATP] Ranking,” Jung said. “I could still run and fight, but though the head was willing, the body often was often not. Sometimes, I could feel my legs getting heavy and it probably affected my shot selection, and not for the better.”

Eighth seed Kyle Edmund avoided having the Brits go 0-2 in the day session by battling past German Dominik Koepfer 6-2, 6-4. Edmund converted four of seven break points and dictated the tempo in most of their baseline rallies.

Awaiting him in the last eight is South Korean Soonwoo Kwon, who upset second-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic on Wednesday.

Jason Jung is the type of player that nobody wants to face. Certainly not at the New York Open, where he’s through to the quarter-finals for the second straight year.

Blessed with cheetah-like speed, the 30-year-old from Chinese Taipei tracks down every ball and makes you play one more shot than you would like to. He also keeps his unforced error count low, so if his opponent hopes to win the point in a timely manner, he will have to paint the lines.

Most of the time, Jung is punching above his weight class. But while height and weight can be measured, there is no instrument that can measure a man’s grit. Jung’s nickname on Tour is “The Chisel” due to his ability to file harder-hitting opponents down to size.

He brings a hard-hat mentality to every match and is ready to battle for as long as it takes. Although he’d like to get home early from the office on some days, Jung recognises that his matches more often resemble marathons than sprints.

Jung enters every match with a classic three-prong strategy. He uses his physical conditioning to saw off his opponent’s legs by extending points with good defence. Jung also attempts to win the mental battle with good tactics and disciplined shot selection. He prefers to play medium-risk tennis and bait his opponent into going for high-risk winners. Jung then wants to break his opponent’s spirit with intense hustle and persistence.

But as last season came to an end, Jung assessed his game and acknowledged that his fitness wasn’t at the level that his taxing playing style requires.

“I felt like my legs let me down a few times in big matches last year that could have had a greater impact on my year-end [FedEx ATP] Ranking,” Jung admitted. “I could still run and fight, but though the head was willing, the body often was not. Sometimes, I could feel my legs getting heavy and it probably affected my shot selection, and not for the better.”

Jung took action and consulted strength and conditioning experts from California to Cambodia. By the end of December, he had six weeks of endless leg squats, calf raises and 400-metre sprints under his belt. But while improved leg strength would certainly help his performance, it was another body part that was causing the most problems: his head.

The baseliner suffered from a lack of faith in his game that haunted him throughout last season. His late-night analysis of tough losses eventually went from constructive to critical. Without realising it, self-doubt started to creep into his head and chipped away at his confidence.

Ironically, it was another tough loss last month that made Jung realise he had turned a corner mentally. After falling in straight sets to Christopher Eubanks at an ATP Challenger Tour event in Newport Beach, his hard work in the off-season allowed him to quickly digest the defeat and move on.

“This was the first time that I lost a set 7-6 or 7-5 and had peace afterwards,”Jung said. “I was disappointed to not get the result that I wanted, but I gave my best and did all that I could to win the match. I know that I could not have prepared better during the off-season.

”I realised that every time I lose a close set or match, it does not have to be my fault. Sometimes my opponent just played some great shots. I know that I did everything in my control to put myself in a winning position. I know it sounds strange, but finally, I can live with that.”

Sometimes, the hardest thing for men like Jung is learning how to not blame themselves when things go wrong in a tennis match. Once that lesson is learned, then they are free to play their best tennis.

Jung is doing exactly that this week in New York.

South Korean Soonwoo Kwon earned one of the biggest wins of his career on Wednesday evening at the New York Open, battling past former World No. 3 Milos Raonic in three tight sets.

“I had experience against Khachanov and good players, so I was a little bit nervous,” Kwon said about facing Raonic. “But I got many experiences from last year and this year, so it was good. I’m really happy for that.”

Little did the Long Island crowd know how much it took — literally and figuratively — to get there.

First, the literal: Kwon lost last Friday in the quarter-finals of the Tata Open Maharashtra more than 12,000 kilometres away. It took the 22-year-old 30 hours to make the journey to New York via Seoul, South Korea.

“I keep thinking positive. I’m still young, so the time difference doesn’t matter, 30 hours flight,” Kwon said, cracking a laugh. “Yesterday I played a little bit tired against [Go] Soeda, but finally I won, which gave me more confidence.”

Kwon was in control of his first-round match against Soeda, leading by a set and a break. But he remained calm, and triumphed in a deciding set against the Japanese. Kwon also had an opportunity to close out Raonic in straight sets. Once again, instead of getting overly frustrated, he reset, maintained his composure and ousted the second seed.

“Two years ago he always rushed and and easily got angry on court,” said Kyu Tae Im, Kwon’s coach. “But I didn’t push him that much. I was just trying to listen to him about it, then gave him time to change his mind.”

Raonic crushed 33 aces from 96 service points. So more than one third of the Canadian’s service points resulted in a ball whizzing by the South Korean.

“Before the match we made plan for when he returns, because he has a really good serve,” Im said. “Doesn’t matter [if he hits] 30 aces, 40 aces.”

Im, who watched how Djokovic played Raonic at the Australian Open, wanted Kwon to stick to the game plan: make a lot of his first serves and to work the point from the baseline to try to tire out Raonic so that the Canadian would make fewer first serves. This way, the longer the match went on, the better Kwon’s chances to work his way into return points. Then, he would methodically use his forehand to earn a short ball and move into net to finish off points.

“Kwon is a really smart boy. When we make a plan before the match, he uses all of things during the match. Win or lose, it doesn’t matter,” Im said. “I think this shows big trust in each other.”

One year ago, Kwon was No. 235 in the FedEx ATP Rankings. The first week of March, he won his first ATP Challenger Tour title in Yokohama, Japan. Then he began working with Im, and he has been on the rise ever since. Kwon has earned his first eight ATP Tour wins in the past seven months, defeating the likes of former Top 10 players Richard Gasquet and Lucas Pouille.

Kwon has also pushed seeded players Karen Khachanov and Nikoloz Basilashvili at last year’s Wimbledon and this year’s Australian Open, respectively. So although he didn’t break through in those moments, he was increasingly gaining confidence.

“He had a good talent and potential, but nobody else gave confidence to him,” Im said of when they started their relationship. “They just spoke to him about his weak points. For me, I tried to keep talking with him about his tennis and how he has good groundstrokes, especially being aggressive his forehand. So I tried to, in practice, use his forehand a lot, and also mentally for him to keep staying calm, too.

“When he practises on the tennis court he is always trying to focus on his exercise and using all his energy on court. I think that is his biggest weapon.”

The World No. 84 is putting himself in winning positions. And with confidence, a strong baseline game and a willingness to move forward, Kwon is finding ways to take advantage of those situations.

“It wasn’t that I played poorly,” Raonic said. “I thought he played really well.”

Kwon is into his third ATP Tour quarter-final, and his upset of Raonic gives him an opportunity to face eighth seed Kyle Edmund for a spot in his first tour-level semi-final.

Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov edged their way into the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament semi-finals on Thursday with a 6-2, 3-6, 10-7 victory over fourth seeds and 2015 champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in 74 minutes. Bopanna and Shapovalov, who reached their first ATP Tour final in June last year at the MercedesCup in Stuttgart (l. to Peers/Soares), await the winners of Henri Kontinen and Jan-Lennard Struff versus Jamie Murray and Ken Skupski.

Elsewhere, Raven Klaasen and Oliver Marach also came through a tight encounter, 6-4, 6-7(5), 10-8, over Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz in one hour and 43 minutes. They now challenge second seeds and 2018 champions Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, who advanced to the semi-finals when Fabio Fognini, partnering Robin Haase, pulled out with a left leg injury.

View Rotterdam Doubles Draw 

Aljaz Bedene recorded just the second Top 10 victory of his career on Thursday at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament. The Slovenian held firm on serve in the first set en route to overcoming World No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-5, 6-4 in one hour and 33 minutes for a place in the quarter-finals. He’ll now meet Felix Auger-Aliassime for the first time.

Bedene saved five break points in the first set – two in his first service game and three at 3-4 – before winning the final 11 points to take the 53-minute opener. Second seed Tsitsipas unravelled after leading 5-4, with Bedene at 15/30 on his serve, and was broken to love at 5-5 when he struck a forehand wide.

Bedene gained a second service break at 1-1 in the second set, when a crosscourt forehand hit the net and bounced over Tsitsipas, who was en route to the net. World No. 52 Bedene closed out with a brilliant forehand down the line – his 20th winner of the pair’s first ATP Head2Head meeting.

Tsitsipas, who recovered from a set and break down against Hubert Hurkacz in the first round, drops to a 3-4 record on the season. Bedene beat his first Top 10 player in May 2018 at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia (d. No. 7 Kevin Anderson)

Jannik Sinner struck 27 winners and closed out his first Top 10 victory in style on Thursday at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament. The 18-year-old wild card overcame World No. 10 and 2017 runner-up David Goffin 7-6(7), 7-5 and will next play Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain in the quarter-finals at the Rotterdam Ahoy.

“I feel great, especially now in this moment,” said Sinner. “It was not easy playing against him. He is very solid, so you sometimes go for a winner, or change the rhythm. It feels like a normal victory, [but] sometimes you play [matches] better than others. It’s all about improving and testing where you are [as a player].”

Sinner clinched the first set, which lasted 68 minutes, with a forehand — his 15th winner — on his fifth set point in the tie-break. The pair had exchanged service breaks at the start of the match. Fourth seed Goffin took a 2-0 lead in the second set, but 2019 Next Gen ATP Finals champion Sinner recovered with his solid groundstrokes and broke for a 6-5 lead when Goffin hit his seventh double fault.

Looking ahead to his next opponent, Sinner said: “[Pablo’s] very difficult, but I need to learn more about him. It won’t be an easy match, as he won against Bautista Agut, who is a very solid player.”

Awaiting Sinner in the next round is Serbian Filip Krajinovic, who withstood three set points and an inspired effort from Canadian Vasek Pospisil to advance 6-4, 7-6(7).

It appeared that Krajinovic would secure a comfortable win after holding match point on his serve at 5-4 in the second set, but a cramping Pospisil shockingly erased it with a backhand return winner. The qualifier then fought off two more match points before bringing the crowd to its feet after securing a break to level the match.

Gets cramp.
Hits a ridiculous return winner on match point.

Serious fight from @VasekPospisil ?

?: @TennisTV | @abnamrowtt pic.twitter.com/n4m9vIGlrN

— ATP Tour (@atptour) February 13, 2020

Krajinovic erased a set point on his serve at 5-6 and fittingly forced a tie-break. The Canadian cracked a backhand return winner at 5/5 to earn another set point, but couldn’t convert and floated a slice backhand well long. Another set point for Pospisil came and went at 7/6 before the 27-year-old Serbian made good on his fourth match point after one hour and 56 minutes.

Elsewhere, Andrey Rublev extended his excellent start to the 2020 ATP Tour season by recording his 13th win in 14 matches. The seventh-seeded Russian improved to 3-0 in his ATP Head2Head against Alexander Bublik with a 7-5, 6-3 win over 80 minutes, which included winning five straight games from 4-5 in the first set to a 2-0 lead in the second set.

Last month, Rublev won back-to-back ATP Tour titles at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (d. Moutet) and at the Adelaide International (d. Harris). He awaits the winner of Vasek Pospisil, victor over top seed Daniil Medvedev on Wednesday, or Filip Krajinovic.