The other quarterfinal on that side of the draw will feature yet another Frenchman, No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, against the victor of Sunday night’s last match in Ashe, between No. 1 Novak Djokovic and 84th-ranked Kyle Edmund of Britain.Tsonga got there by eliminating the last American man in the field, No. 26 Jack Sock, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-2.
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Over at Louis Armstrong Stadium, Tsonga beat American Jack Sock in four sets to reach the quarterfinals for the second straight year. Tsonga won 83 percent of his first serves, significantly better than Sock’s 68 percent, and lost only 12 points on his first serve.
Three days after his 30th birthday, there were still classic Monfils moments in this one, including an attempt to tie his shoe in the middle of a point. He entered his tussle against Sock riding an eight-match winning streak, including a Masters series victory in Cincinnati over Andy Murray. “Been in the top 10 for a long time and had great success at tournaments of all levels and I’m going to have to obviously bring out my best stuff again to have a chance”.
Pouille played conservatively, hitting short shots and making sure they landed in.
Tsonga will put pressure on the weaker backhand side of Sock and holds his serve more often at 91.3% on outdoor hard this season compared with 84.4% for Sock.
Yet Sock had the benefit of having beaten Cilic in a David Cup match recently, and seemed to draw on that confidence as he dominated throughout. And Cilic looked visibly uncomfortable – nearly rushed – from the start, knowing that the atmosphere at Armstrong was more of a Davis Cup vibe with the changes of “USA, USA”. He won the next game on his serve but could not continue, giving Djokovic a pass into the round of 16. But for too long it seems as if he has been steadfastly stubborn in not altering his approach of going all out for almost every shot. “I’m executing it well, and I feel like I know what I’m going to do on nearly every point”. It was also remarkably clean as the match stats indicate: 25 winners to only 15 unforced errors.
Against Cilic, who followed up his title with a semifinal appearance a year ago, Sock won all 14 of his service games, never facing so much as one break point.
Chamley-Watson had come to support fellow American Sock in his match against the No. 7 seed Cilic.
“I just played good tennis today”, he said. Was able to work well, especially in the windy conditions …
“I think as everyone knows, I love everything in this country and playing for them”, Sock said.
“I feel like I’m definitely more on a mission this year”, he said. There are four matches on Sunday, four on Monday. Tsonga will make this tough, but Djokovic will win.
“He’s a very established player”, Sock said.
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Struggling through a sloppy eighth game cost Sock the first break.
