Rafa Rolls On To 20 Straight Clay Wins, Djokovic Loses Again; Raonic-Shapovalov Canadian Collision Thurs
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Rafael Nadal continued his clay dominance on Wednesday. Playing at his home Masters event in Madrid, Nadal ripped apart Gael Monfils 6-3, 6-1 to win his 20th straight match on clay, 48 consecutive sets.
“The process is very simple for me: I analyze every day the things that happened and try to fix things,” Nadal assessed. “My team and I, we need to keep improving, and keep doing the things that are working very well. Every day is a different day. What happened the week before or two weeks ago is in the past.
“We were thinking just about the match of today. Now we are thinking about the match of tomorrow. That’s the way that I analyze things. I don’t think if I had a lot of victories in a row. I think that I have another tough match tomorrow, I can go on court and win or lose. Of course, there are always things to improve. I go on court every day to try to make that happen.”
Next for Rafa will be Deigo Schwartzman who dumped Feliciano Lopez.
Speaking on getting dumped, Novak Djokovic slipped and fell again, losing for a first time to Brit Kyle Edmund 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.
After a rough start, Djokovic solidified his play then had three break chances at 2-all, 0-40 in the third but failed to convert. Djokovic was soon broken and then Edmund served it out.
Obviously I’m disappointed from losing this match,” said Djokovic. “But I can be happy with the progress of the level of my tennis.
“There are obvious things that are not working well for me. But I have to keep working on them and pray that — and hope that — my game will get stronger, get better as the matches go the distance. Especially [at] such big tournaments against quality players, you’ve got to step in. I tried, but obviously, wasn’t to be today. Hopefully, next one.”
Djokovic is just 6-6 on the year.
“It’s not the end of the world,” he added. “Obviously, I’ve played this sport so many years and had a bunch of success. I try to always remind myself and be grateful for that.”
For Edmund, it was his first career win over the Serb.
“It’s a great win for me,” said Edmund. “He’s a legend of the game, one of the best tennis players of all time. So, it’s a really good win for me. [I’m] pleased with the way my game’s developing, that I’m able to beat a player like that. It does me the world of good in lots of ways: confidence, belief. It’s just a really good win for me.”
Edmund will now face David Goffin tomorrow.
Also on Wednesday, John Isner ousted fellow American Ryan Harrison. Borna Coric cruised past Jan-Lennard Struff and Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev were winners.
Tomorrow sees Juan Martin del Potro taking on Dusan Lajovic. And in perhaps the match of the day, Milos Raonic will get his first look at his young countryman Denis Shapovalov.
THURSDAY MADRID SCHEDULE
Manolo Santana Starts At 12:00 Noon
QF 7 Caroline Garcia VS Carla Suárez Navarro
Not Before 2:00 Pm
QF 1Simona Halep VS 6 Karolina Pliskova
3rd Rd 4 Juan Martin del Potro VS (Q) Dusan Lajovic
Not Before 8:00 Pm
3rd Rd 1 Rafael Nadal VS 13 Diego Schwartzman
Not Before 9:30 Pm
QF 14 Daria Kasatkina VS 10 Petra Kvitova
Arantxa Sanchez Starts At 12:00 Noon
3rd Rd 8 David Goffin VS Kyle Edmund
Not Before 2:00 Pm
3rd Rd Denis Shapovalov VS Milos Raonic
Not Before 3:30 Pm
QF Maria Sharapova VS Kiki Bertens
3rd Rd Leonardo Mayer VS 2Alexander Zverev
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