Nadal Faces Birthday Boy Zverev Thursday In Monte-Carlo
Nadal Faces Birthday Boy Zverev Thursday In Monte-Carlo
View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the following match-ups Thursday at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters & vote for the players you think will win!
Nadal v Zverev | Djokovic v Carreno Busta | Wawrinka v Cuevas | Murray v Ramos-Vinolas
View Thursday schedule.
Alexander Zverev celebrates his 20th birthday at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on Thursday with a third-round showdown against nine-time champion Rafael Nadal. Zverev earned 75 wins and two titles as a teen, but he’s 0-2 against the 30-year-old Spaniard. Nadal saved a match point to edge Zverev at 2016 Indian Wells before beating the German in five sets at the 2017 Australian Open.
Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka, winners of the last 12 Monte-Carlo titles, are all in action on Court Rainier III. Djokovic meets No. 13 seed Pablo Carreno Busta, who is 0-15 against Top 10 opponents and won only one game against the World No. 2 in this round three years ago. Also seeking the biggest win of his career is Pablo Cuevas, who faces the World No. 3 Wawrinka.
Top seed Andy Murray continues his quest for one of the two ATP Masters 1000 titles still missing from his trophy case. The three-time semi-finalist gets play underway at 11 am local time against 15th-seeded Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain. Should he pull off the upset, Ramos-Vinolas will earn his first victory over a World No. 1 and his first place in an ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final.
Top 10 seeds clash on Court Des Princes when No. 5 seed Marin Cilic meets No. 9 seed Tomas Berdych and No. 6 seed Dominic Thiem takes on No. 10 seed David Goffin. Berdych has lost seven straight matches against Top 10 opponents, while Cilic hasn’t beaten a player ranked as high as Berdych this season. Goffin leads all players with 21 wins in 2017. Thiem is fifth with 18 wins.
Also on Court Des Princes, 2016 Australian Open doubles semi-finalists Lucas Pouille and Adrian Mannarino face off and Diego Schwartzman meets Jan-Lennard Struff. Schwartzman, Struff and Mannarino are a win from the biggest quarter-final of their singles careers. Mannarino and Struff could also become the first qualifiers in the Monte-Carlo quarter-finals since Fred Gil in 2011.
