Medvedev Upset By Paul At Rome Masters; Fritz Tops Dimitrov, Faces Zverev In Wed. QF

by Staff | May 14th, 2024, 7:11 pm
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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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