World number eight Grigor Dimitrov beat Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro to reach the China Open quarter-finals.
The Bulgarian third seed won 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 in Beijing to set up a meeting with Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.
Former US Open champion Del Potro, a wildcard here, served for the second set but a series of forehand errors gave Dimitrov the decisive break.
British number three Aljaz Bedene retired from his last-16 match against Bautista Agut with a knee injury.
The 28-year-old, ranked 50th in the world, lost the first set 6-0 to the fifth seed, and was trailing 4-0 in the second when he decided not to continue.
Elsewhere, Australian eighth seed Nick Kyrgios beat Germany’s Mischa Zverev 3-6 6-2 6-2 in 82 minutes.
Kyrgios received a warning from the umpire after smashing his racquet at the end of the first set, but quickly recovered his composure.
He struck 11 aces and converted all four break point opportunities to beat Zverev and reach the quarter-finals, where he will face Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis, who beat Dusan Lajovic 6-3 6-4.
Before mid-August, Grigor Dimitrov had lost all five of his FedEx ATP Head2Head match-ups with Juan Martin del Potro. The Bulgarian had never been able to solve the game of the big-hitting Argentine.
How things have changed. Dimitrov won his second consecutive match against del Potro on Wednesday at the China Open, coming through in a tight second-round affair 7-6(6), 7-5 to move into the quarter-finals in Beijing and boost his chances of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals.
“Very pleased that I was able to finish in straight sets. DelPo is an absolutely unbelievable competitor… Every time we play it’s absolutely stunning. He’s a great guy. I love practising with him. I love competing against him,” Dimitrov said.
The third seed was down a break in the second set and served at 2-5 to stay in the set. But Dimitrov ran off five consecutive games, including two breaks, to improve to 2-5 against del Potro in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series. The win adds 45 more points to Dimitrov’s Emirates ATP Race To London tally, giving him 3,185 points, 530 behind fourth-placed Dominic Thiem, who lost in Tokyo on Tuesday.
“I really needed that match… I just had to find a way today. I fought really hard, lowered my expectations, stayed positive,” Dimitrov said. “He’s the kind of competitor who can beat anybody… There’s not going to be any freebies against him. So I had to work, work and only work today. That was it. I didn’t think I played my best tennis but it feels awesome to win on days like that.”
See Who’s Pushing Dimitrov In The Emirates ATP Race To London
Dimitrov is seeking to make his debut at the season-ending tournament, to be held 12-19 November at The O2 in London. The right-hander will next face Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, who was leading Aljaz Bedene 6-0, 4-0 when the Brit retired.
Romanian second seed Simona Halep recorded her first victory over Maria Sharapova and advanced to the China Open quarter-finals with a 6-2 6-2 win.
The 26-year-old world number two, in her eighth match with Russian ex-world number one Sharapova, raced 4-1 ahead.
She won in 72 minutes to reach her second China Open quarter-final.
In the last eight Halep will play the winner of the evening match between Polish world number 11 Agnieszka Radwanska and Russian Daria Kasatkina.
Sharapova beat Halep at the US Open in August but committed 39 unforced errors in an untidy display in Beijing.
The 30-year-old Russian, who returned to competitive tennis in April following a 15-month doping ban, was competing at the China Open for the first since she won the title in 2014.
Now ranked 104, Sharapova beat fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova in three sets in the previous round but could find no answer to the power and precision of the groundstrokes from Halep, who made only six unforced errors.
Dimitrov faces del Potro later on Wednesday
Nick Kyrgios is through to the quarter-finals of the China Open in Beijing after finishing strongly to defeat Mischa Zverev 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” said Kyrgios, who struck 11 aces and converted all four of his break point opportunities in the 82-minute win. “He plays a very old-school type of tennis, likes to come forward a lot.
“I got broken early in the first. Then I kind of knew I had to loosen up and find my rhythm a little bit. I started serving much better, started just relaxing. I knew I was going to feel pretty comfortable at some stage out there. Obviously just really happy to get through.”
Kyrgios goes on to face either Steve Darcis or Dusan Lajovic as he bids to advance to his fifth ATP World Tour semi-final of the season. The 22-year-old Australian reached his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final in August at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati (l. to Dimitrov) and has a 29-14 match record on the season.
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As a returner, everything is stacked against you.
Firstly, you are facing the hardest shot hit on a tennis court, sometimes upwards of 140 mph. Blink, and it’s gone. Secondly, you begin in a statistical black hole, not even forecast to win three out of every 10 points you play.
Returning first serves is one of the toughest elements of our sport, with only a handful of players able to nudge their win rate higher than 30 per cent in this key strategic area. Depending on court surface and speed, average first-serve return win percentages for the Top 100 are typically between 26-30 per cent, with the average right at 28 per cent.
An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Rafael Nadal’s resurgence to No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings this season shows that the Spaniard’s performance in this key battleground has certainly aided his comeback.
Nadal is also No. 1 on tour in 2017 winning return points against first serves, at 35.2 per cent (971/2761). That metric bumps up to an astounding 43.4 per cent (454/1045) when you focus on just his clay-court matches.
2017 Season: Top 10 Points Won Returning First Serves
| Ranking | Player | Win Percentage |
| 1 | Rafael Nadal | 35.2% |
| 2 | Andy Murray | 34.7% |
| 3 | Diego Schwartzman | 34.5% |
| 4 | Benoit Paire | 33.7% |
| 5 | Novak Djokovic | 33.5% |
| 6 | Roberto Bautista Agut | 32.8% |
| 7 | Roger Federer | 32.5% |
| 8 | Fabio Fognini | 31.9% |
| 9 | Dominic Thiem | 31.8% |
| 10 | Marin Cilic | 31.6% |
| – | AVERAGE | 33.2% |
Andy Murray, who started 2017 as the No. 1 player in the Emirates ATP Rankings, is second best this season winning return points against first serves, at 34.7 per cent (640/1847).
Diego Schwartzman is the best returner on tour so far in 2017, winning an impressive 36 per cent (195/544) of his return games. He comes in third best winning return points against first serves, at 34.5 per cent (724/2099).
Other players in the Top 10 in first-serve return points won this season include Novak Djokovic (33.5 per cent), Roberto Bautista Agut (32.8 per cent), Roger Federer (32.5 per cent), Fabio Fognini (31.9 per cent), Dominic Thiem (31.8 per cent) and Marin Cilic (31.6 per cent).
Nadal, Djokovic and Murray have been No. 1 in this statistic for the past six seasons, dating back to 2011.
The technique used to succeed in this area is built around rebounding the power coming at you rather than trying to generate it all yourself. Blocking first serves with a short backswing and a defencive mindset lets these players neutralise the power of the first serve as quickly as possible in the rally.
The halo effect of the serve typically lasts for two more shots in a rally, where the server can lean on their groundstrokes and play aggressively because of the offence created behind their first serve. But these peak returners typically take that two-shot advantage away, often times pushing the server immediately onto their back foot for their Serve +1 groundstroke.
The primary target is straight back at the server, not changing direction at all, and trying to get the return as deep as possible to make the server have to move away from the shot instead of towards it.
There is no other strategy in our sport that makes you feel good winning only three out of ten times. It’s all about defence first, and looking to get back to neutral as quickly as possible through depth and direction right back at the server.
British tennis player Dan Evans has been banned for one year after testing positive for cocaine, which he explained had accidentally mixed with his medication in a washbag.
The British number four provided the positive sample at the Barcelona Open on 24 April and his suspension is back-dated to begin from that date.
Evans, 27, will therefore be free to return to action from 24 April 2018.
“I am determined to return to the sport I love,” said the Briton.
“I want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout this difficult period.”
Governing body the International Tennis Federation (ITF) explained that, because cocaine is not performance enhancing and it was taken out of competition, a potential four-year ban was instead 12 months.
The ITF decision said Evans “promptly admitted his violation” and it accepted his account of how the cocaine got into his system, adding that he bore “no significant fault or negligence for the violation”.
The Briton has also had to forfeit 103,890 euros (£92,205) of prize money won and the ranking points gained between the date of his test and the announcement of the positive finding on 23 June.
According to the ITF decision announced on Tuesday, Evans said “leftover” cocaine had accidentally mixed with permitted medication in the “same pocket of his washbag”.
He said he took those tablets daily from 20 April 2017 to 24 April 2017, the date on which he provided his sample.
It was successfully proven by Evans’ expert, Dr Pascal Kintz, that the amount of cocaine ingested by Evans was no more than 1‐3 mg – a quantity “inconsistent with knowing ingestion and consistent instead with inadvertent contamination”.
Evans had reached a career-high ranking of 41 in March but is now down to 108th, and will slip further before he is able to return to competition in April.
| Dan Evans factfile | |
|---|---|
| Born | 23 May 1990, Birmingham |
| Turned pro | 2006 |
| Best Grand Slam performances | Australian Open: 4R (2016) |
| French Open: 1R (2017) | |
| Wimbledon: 3R (2016) | |
| US Open: 3R (2013) and (2016) | |
| ATP Tour titles | 0 |
| ATP Tour finals | 1 (Sydney 2017) |
| Career prize money | £1,053,266 |
| 2017 prize money | £319,132 |
Russell Fuller, BBC tennis correspondent
Evans will be very pleased at the outcome, having admitted taking cocaine just four days before he played his first match in Barcelona – in the heart of the clay-court season.
First, the 27-year-old successfully argued he took the drug in a context unrelated to tennis, and then convinced the ITF he was not guilty of significant fault as the legal medication he was taking at the time had been contaminated by the leftover cocaine.
The ITF’s more emollient approach to this case contrasts noticeably with the way they have prosecuted other recent doping violations. Maria Sharapova, Marin Cilic and Viktor Troicki all appealed the verdict of independent tribunals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport – and all had their bans reduced.
The ITF will have been very keen to avoid this case going the same way, and as Evans agreed to the ban they proposed, the governing body did not push for an independent hearing.
Evans now has a good opportunity to re-establish himself as a top-100 player. It won’t be glamorous returning to the lower tiers of the Futures circuit to scrap for ranking points, but he has proven before he can do it.
In May 2015, after a spell out through injury, Evans stood at 772 in the world. He was back in the world’s top 100 within a year.