Medvedev Upset By Paul At Rome Masters; Fritz Tops Dimitrov, Faces Zverev In Wed. QF
More upsets hit the men’s draw at the Rome Masters on Tuesday. Defending champion Daniil Medvedev fell by the wayside going out to a hot-handed Tommy Paul 6-1, 6-4 in just 73 minutes.
Medvedev, who has still yet to win a title more than once, was lost and unfocused most of the match as Paul broke the Russian five times including from 2-0 down in the second.
“I think it was a pretty clean match for me, other than maybe the first or second game in both sets,” Paul said to the ATP. “I played some really good tennis. I played pretty aggressive, that was the game plan coming in.”
The loss leaves Alexander Zverev the lone former champion left. The German rolled past Portugal’s Nuno Borges in straights 6-2, 7-5. He’ll now get a very in-form Taylor Fritz who made his third Masters quarterfinal on clay this spring ousting Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-7(11), 6-1. Fritz had a match point during the second set breaker while Dimitrov needed 10 set points to push a decider.
“To be honest, I feel like normally in those situations, I’d be a lot more uptight and nervy, but honestly I felt pretty calm,” Fritz said of the breaker. “I think it was tough because slowly the sun was moving the whole match, and right in the tie-breaker is the first time it was bad for me on that side. So I threw in the double fault.
“I had a really good opportunity on a second serve, match point, and he hit it into my body and a bit slower than the other ones. I just caught it a bit early trying to get out the way of it. It’s easy to go back and dwell on that the whole third set, but I did a really good job at just putting it behind me and not thinking about that second serve return.”
Stefanos Tsitsipas continued his strong clay season crushing the 9th-seeded Alex De Minaur 6-1, 6-2. He’s into his fourth straight Rome Masters quarterfinal and is now 13-2 on clay this year.
Also, 7th-seeded Hubert Hurkacz had to work to defeat No. 17 Sebastian Baez 5-7, 7-6, 6-4. The Polish No. 1 was down a set a break to Baez. With the win, he has now made the quarters at all nine Masters events.
Nicolas Jarry got over on qualifier Alexandre Muller 7-5, 6-3, Zhang Zhizhen ended Thiago Monteiro‘s run 7-6(7-4), 6-3 and 29th-seeded Alejandro Tabilo upset No. 16 Karen Khachanov in straights 7-6(5), 7-6(10).
Tomorrow, the quarters get underway with Zverev and Fritz. Zverev leads 4-3 with Fritz winning most recently last year at the United Cup. They’ve never met on clay.
And Tabilo takes on Zhang in a first-time tour-level meeting.
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