#NextGenATP American Jared Donaldson battled into the quarter-finals of the Chengdu Open as he edged Kyle Edmund 6-0, 1-6, 6-4 on Wednesday at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament.

It is an important win for the 20-year-old Donaldson, who is currently sixth in the Emirates ATP Race To Milan, as he bids to qualify for the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals. Just five weeks remain in the battle to qualify for the eight-player event.

Donaldson defeated Edmund for the second time this year, breaking the Briton in the final game of the match to convert his third match point after one hour and 39 minutes. The right-hander also came through a tight first-round encounter, beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-5 in the third set. He is looking to reach his first ATP World Tour semi-final.

“Once you do it once, you know you could do it again. I knew that if I played well, if I played my game, I had a really good chance to win the match,” Donaldson said. “At the end of the day, each match is a new day, it’s a new match…again, it was a really close match. That’s what you expect at this level.”

There was disappointment for second seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas and third seed Karen Khachanov, though.

Dusan Lajovic won 76 per cent of his service points as he upset Ramos-Vinolas, 6-2, 6-3, in 67 minutes. The No. 84-ranked Lajovic is through to his first ATP World Tour quarter-final since Kitzbuhel in July (l. to Kohlschreiber) and goes on to face fifth seed Yuichi Sugita, who was a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Thiago Monteiro.

Defending champion Khachanov fell at the first hurdle as he was beaten 6-3, 6-2 by Denis Istomin. The 21 year old won his first ATP World Tour title in Chengdu 12 months ago, but was disappointed on his return, losing his serve three times in the 65-minute defeat.

“It’s really disappointing for me,” said Khachanov. “It just didn’t go the way I wanted in terms of playing the way I wanted. I just couldn’t find exactly my game today. I wasn’t aggressive and I was missing a lot. I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like in some tournaments this year, but that’s something I can improve, so that’s a positive thing.”

The 31-year-old Istomin, who famously defeated Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Australian Open in January, is through to his second quarter-final in a row after reaching the last eight in Metz last week (l. to Basilashvili).

Last week’s Metz champion, Peter Gojowczyk, survived a quick turnaround to defeat eighth seed Leonardo Mayer, 6-2, 6-2 in 55 minutes. The victory comes three days after the 28-year-old Gojowczyk captured his first ATP World Tour title at the Moselle Open (d. Paire), taking him to a career-high No. 66 in the Emirates ATP Rankings.

Top Seeds Upset, Second Seeds Cruise

Jonathan Erlich and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi led by a set and 4-1 against top-seeded Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic. But after nearly squandering the lead, with Marach and Pavic earning three set points in the ensuing tie-break, the Israeli-Pakistani duo pulled off the upset, 6-4, 7-6(8) in one hour and 33 minutes.

Second seeds Julio Peralta and Michael Venus dropped just four games in their first-round dismissal of Borna Coric and Guido Pella, advancing with a 6-1, 6-3 win in 46 minutes. Peralta is coming off a runner-up showing in St. Petersburg with Horacio Zeballos.

Dominic Thiem, who is the top seed in the singles draw, paired up with Jan-Lennard Struff in the doubles, but the pair was defeated by Mayer and Ramos-Vinolas, 6-4, 6-2.

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Zhizhen Zhang began his week with one career ATP World Tour victory. But after the 20 year old’s stunning 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) upset over fourth-seeded Paolo Lorenzi, the Chinese qualifier is into his first tour-level quarter-final at the Shenzhen Open.

“I feel very excited,” Zhang said. “I just wished tonight I can survive and I will be ready for the next one.”

Zhang was up 3-1 in the deciding set when he lost three games in a row, and then faced two break points, which would have allowed the No. 2 Italian to serve for the match. But once Zhang was able to hold, both players managed their service games well until the tie-break.

Under the greatest pressure of his career thus far, Zhang earned what would be the final mini-break while up 4-3 and he would not look back, going on to close out the World No. 39 in two hours and 31 minutes. The 20 year old has already secured a new career-high Emirates ATP Ranking, but should Zhang win again in Shenzhen, he will climb to the doorstep of the Top 300. 

“Next match I will do my best,” said Zhang, who is the first tour-level quarter-finalist from China since Ze Zhang in Beijing five years ago. “I will not think how he’s going to play. I will think how I’m going to play. That’s the most important thing.”

Second-seeded David Goffin got off to a strong start to his campaign, beating Evgeny Donskoy, 7-6(5), 6-3 in one hour and 25 minutes.

The World No. 12 saved the lone break point he faced in the sixth game of the opening set, and managed to navigate through a tie-break in which more points were won by the returner than the server. In the second set, the Belgian broke early on and lost just six points on serve to close out the match. 

Three days after winning his first ATP World Tour title, sixth seed Damir Dzumhur had made the trip from St. Petersburg to Shenzhen, where he advanced to the second round with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over John Millman.

Dzumhur is at a career-high No. 40 in the Emirates ATP Rankings this week after becoming the first player from Bosnia & Herzegovina to win an ATP World Tour title when he defeated Fabio Fognini in the St. Petersburg Open final. The 25 year old notched his 28th win of the season in 77 minutes as he struck 11 aces and converted four of his seven break points.

Top-seeded Alexander Zverev will make his singles debut in Shenzhen on Thursday, when the World No. 4 takes on ATP World Tour veteran Steve Darcis.

Top Seeds Survive And Advance

Top-seeded Nikola Mektic and Nicholas Monroe chose the right time to earn their first break of serve Wednesday. After David Marrero and Joao Sousa broke the Croatian-American duo to serve for the match in the second set at 5-4, the veterans fought back to break and eventually win the set in a tie-break. Mektic and Monroe would then go on to claim the match tie-break as well, earning the 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-7 victory. 

First-time pairing Marcelo Melo and Zverev, the third seeds, beat Wimbledon quarter-finalists Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and Andrei Vasilevski, 7-6(5), 6-4 in one hour and 32 minutes.

Fourth-seeded Wesley Koolhof and Artem Sitak were not as fortunate, falling to Andre Begemann and Franko Skugor, 7-5, 7-6(5) after losing four set points in the second set.

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In his 22^nd season on tour, Belarusian Max Mirnyi is still celebrating career milestones. On Tuesday, the 40-year-old ATP World Tour legend became the fourth active player in the Open Era (since April 1968) to record 750 doubles match wins.

Mirnyi partnered with Philipp Oswald of Austria to beat Chinese wild cards Mao-Xin Gong and Ze Zhang 7-6(5), 6-1 and advance to the second round of the Shenzhen Open.

“I am thrilled that I have come to this stage of my career. It is something that I couldn’t have imagined at the beginning of the road,” said Mirnyi, who turned professional in 1996. “Just playing on the ATP World Tour was already a dream come true and I am so glad that this dream for me still lives on. I want to take this opportunity to thank my family, my coaches and every one of my doubles partners who helped me achieve this feat.”

Open Era Doubles Match Wins List

Mirnyi, who earned the nickname “The Beast” years ago for his 6’5” stature and fearless play, has had success with a number of partners throughout his career.

In 2004, he won three ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles with Mahesh Bhupathi and one with a certain Swiss player by the name of Roger Federer. Three years later, Mirnyi partnered with Jonas Bjorkman, who now coaches Croatian Marin Cilic, and captured seven titles, including three Masters 1000 crowns, the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals and Roland Garros.

Just last year, Mirnyi and Treat Huey of the Philippines won the Acapulco doubles title and qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals in London, the 10^th time Mirnyi has competed at the prestigious event. For his career, the right-hander has won 49 tour-level doubles titles, including 16 Masters 1000 crowns and six Grand Slam titles, with 18 different partners.

Rafael Nadal is this week practising in Mallorca to prepare for the final stage of the season, which will include attempts to secure the year-end No. 1 spot in the Emirates ATP Rankings and his first Nitto ATP Finals title. Before he heads off to Asia, where he will play in Beijing (beginning 2 October) and Shanghai, the 16-time Grand Slam champion talked to the Spanish newspaper EL ESPAÑOL.

Nadal has achieved almost everything he could over what has been a successful decade, so how does the Spaniard remain so humble and grounded? Nadal, of course, has a clear answer.

“It’s related to your background, the place where you come from, the people who surround you and the education you have received,” said Nadal. “I grew up in a very normal environment and I still live this way. If I didn’t get a big head being 19, when all of a sudden everything happened and could go to my head, it won’t happen now when I am 31.”

Nadal has tried to maintain a modest attitude throughout his career, even after winning 30 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles and 16 majors.

“I am a normal and a common person. I do not see myself as a role model of anything,” explained Nadal. “I am a guy who plays tennis well. Things have worked out great, but I took it as something normal, as my family and people around me did. I have tried to have the right attitude on and off the court. But I make mistakes like everyone else. I am not the perfect son.”

Nadal, who has suffered multiple injuries over the past two years, has been healthy this season. It has been as perfect a year as he could have hoped for thus far.

“Seriously, I don’t want to talk about pain,” said Nadal. “I don’t like to talk about it. I try to manage everything the best way possible, the better I can. My goal is to finish the season healthy and then see if we can improve things for 2018. Today I am focused on what I have to do now: play well during the Asian swing and try to get ready for the last part of the season. That’s the only important thing for me right now.”

The addition of Carlos Moyà to the team has had a great impact on his success, says the World No. 1.“Carlos has been a great support,” said Nadal. “He came with excitement and also the belief that with a few things, I could improve my results. And it has helped. It has been a breath of fresh air, positive energy. We have changed the way we practise and for Toni (Nadal) it has been also good.” 

Nadal says that while it is sometimes difficult to change practices after doing them the same way for a long stretch, Moya has made it easy.

“When you have the same routine for years it’s difficult to change,” said Nadal. “Carlos has been someone new who arrived in Mallorca to our daily practice sessions with new ideas, more specific ones. When someone new arrives, it’s easier to listen because it’s something different. And for Toni, having Carlos’ reinforcement when he had to talk to me, has made everything much easier. They have been a great team and I am very satisfied with their job, with the three of them.” 

Nadal doesn’t rule out the option of playing doubles alongside Moyà, something he did with one of his other coaches, Francisco Roig, in the past.

“If Carlos is healthy we could play and be competitive,” said Nadal. “We’ll see. Depends on the schedule. I play a few tournaments when it comes to doubles, only when I think it will help me in singles. Normally I play at the beginning of the season or at a specific tournament.”

Does Nadal, who won Grand Slam No. 16 just weeks ago, think about the possibility of surpassing Roger’s Federer record of 19?

“Honestly, no,” answered Nadal. “To me, reaching the No. 1 place was not a goal and now could be a goal to finish the season up there after everything that has happened. Federer’s record? Now it’s not a challenge nor a goal. If there are options in the future, then it would be. I am happy with what I do, I am focused on my career and I don’t worry about the other ones.”

Lastly, Nadal addressed the possibility of becoming a coach in the future.

“I don’t know if I would be a good coach or not,” admitted Nadal. “I don’t think about it, but I won’t say no because there were a lot players who said that they wouldn’t become coaches and here they are. I can see myself in the academy helping kids every day, playing with them. In five or 10 years, we’ll see what happens.”