Seventh seed Martin Klizan raced through his second-round bout with wild card Louis Wessels 6-1, 6-1 as the bottom half of the German Tennis Championships 2016 singles draw vied for their quarter-final berths on Thursday.

The Slovak, already a champion this year (Rotterdam, d. Monfils), secured his place in the quarter-finals of this ATP World Tour 500 event in 50 minutes.

“I’m very happy, especially to come back from injury to make the quarter-finals for the first time [at the ATP World Tour 500-level] since Rotterdam,” said Klizan. “I feel very good and I look forward to playing tomorrow.”

The Slovak will next play Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver. a 5-7, 7-6(4), 7-6(2) winner over qualifier Daniil Medvedev. The World No. 56 battled for more than three hours to down his Russian opponent by converting on his third match point.

Frenchman Stephane Robert also advanced, defeating Inigo Cervantes 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 in their second-round encounter. The 36-year-old Frenchman Robert is enjoying a resurgence this season, climbing back into the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings (No. 83) after dropping as low as No. 558 in 25 May 2015. He will next meet another Spaniard, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, for a place in the Hamburg last four.

Watch Robert Hot Shot

Garcia-Lopez booked his seventh quarter-final of 2016 after victory over Slovenia’s Grega Zemlja 6-2, 6-2 in 73 minutes. The eighth seed, bidding for his second semi-final appearance in 2016 (l. to Verdasco in Bucharest), improved to 2-0 in FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings with Zemlya.

“[Robert] has a good, flat backhand and it will be tough to take initiative during the points, but if I do so then I have chances to win,” said Garcia-Lopez of his next opponent. “I will try to do my best tomorrow.”

Seeds Fall In Doubles QFs
Top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Alexander Peya fell in two sets to Guillermo Duran and Jonathan Erich 6-2, 7-6(2) in an 84-minute affair, while third seeds Daniel Nestor and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi booked a berth in the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 4-6 [10-2] victory over Colin Fleming and Mariusz Fyrstenberg in 73 minutes.

The Western & Southern Open announced today the 43 highest-ranked men on the ATP World Tour are entered to play the event in August.

ESPN commentator Chris Fowler helped make the announcement at a media event held in downtown Cincinnati. Organizers also announced additional fan experience upgrades including an updated smartphone app, new Family Zone, and increased broadcast coverage.

The event will be held August 13-21 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio.

The initial entry lists from each tour include 32 players – 15 men and 17 women – who have combined to win 43 titles this season.

“We’re excited to welcome this world class player field to Cincinnati for the Western & Southern Open in August,” said tournament director Andre Silva. “While we pride ourselves on having a great event full of food, drink and entertainment options, it’s the incredible talent and competition provided by these stars of the WTA and ATP World Tour that the fans expect each year.”

The men’s entries include Roger Federer, who has won a record seven Western & Southern Open titles; two-time champion Andy Murray and five-time finalist Novak Djokovic, who recently completed a career Grand Slam and needs only this title to complete a set of titles from each ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events.

The men’s field also includes six rising stars who are under the age of 24: 19-year-old Alexander Zverev (ranked 28), 21-year-old Nick Kyrgios (18), 22-year-olds Lucas Pouille (30) and Dominic Thiem (8), and 23-year-olds Bernard Tomic (19) and Jack Sock (26).

Tickets still available. To purchase, or for more tournament information, please visit www.wsopen.com.

Global dominance at the elite level of our sport is actually built upon razor thin margins that appear when we examine the building blocks of point play.

Novak Djokovic has won 92 per cent (46-4) of his matches this season, but when broken down to the simplest level of points won, his winning percentage is just 56 per cent. It’s amazing that someone as dominant as Djokovic is taking a 50-50 battle and shifting it just six percentage points in his favour to create the superiority that we have grown accustomed to.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis shows that the current players in the Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings have won, on average, just 53.2 per cent of their points this season. The flip side of the coin is also sobering to contemplate: Top 10 players average losing 47 per cent of all the points they play.

This is the hidden math of tennis that is exposed when you break the sport down to the building blocks of our game, which can be further divided into the two categories of serving and returning.

Holding serve is definitely an easier task, thanks to the inherent power of the serve at the beginning of the point. Players also have to win a substantial amount of points returning, which is far more difficult, as they are quite often on defence trying to neutralise 130 mile per hour serves to begin points.The variety of serve and return win percentages actually varies a lot within the Top 10.

Take, for example, Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka. Both are winning 68 per cent of their serve points this season, but Djokovic is winning a much higher number on the return side of the equation, 46 per cent, compared to just 40 per cent for Wawrinka.

No two players in the Top 10 have exactly the same win rate in serve and return points won, highlighting the variety of playing styles that can be utilised to reach this elite level of our game.

On the serving side, Milos Raonic and Roger Federer are the top performers in service points won at 71 per cent. To achieve such lofty numbers, Raonic does it with the raw power of his serve, while Federer relies more on hitting spots and winning the strategic guessing game of serve location.

It’s also interesting to note that Dominic Thiem and Andy Murray both win 67 per cent of their serve points, while the Brit performs slightly better on the return side of the equation, winning 42 per cent of return points to 40 per cent for Thiem.

Tomas Berdych and Richard Gasquet have a two-point separation on both the serve and return sides of the equation, with Berdych taking the honours on the serve side, (66 per cent to 64 per cent), while Gasquet leads returning (41 per cent to 39 per cent).

There are dozens of players good enough to reach the Top 10, but with only 10 spots available, it’s all about mastering key strategies that slightly tip the win percentages.

*Statistics do not include Wimbledon results.