Troicki Turns The Tables On Baghdatis
Serbian Viktor Troicki is through to his sixth ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season after claiming his first win over Marcos Baghdatis in six years at the Chengdu Open on Thursday. The sixth seed ground out a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 second-round result in one hour and 47 minutes for a shot at second seed Nick Kyrgios or Kevin Anderson next.
Baghdatis had won four of his previous five FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings with Troicki, including the past three. But he was coming off a three-hour-plus victory over Pablo Carreno Bustsa from the day before, in stark contrast to the one hour and 13 minutes Troicki had spent seeing off Norwegian wild card Casper Ruud. Troicki finished stronger against Baghdatis, dropping just one point on serve in the final set and broke twice to seal the result.
In doubles, Nicholas Monroe and Artem Sitak advanced to the semi-finals with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Indians Purav Raja and Divij Sharan. They await either top seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram or Kyrgios and Troicki.