Defending champion Roger Federer, third seed Andy Murray and eight seed Rafa Nadal are among the competitors in the final four matches in the round of 16 later on Thursday. It’s the only one of the nine ATP Masters to elude him.
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With a win he’d become the first player to triumph in all nine of the ATP’s elite Masters 1000 events – a feat that Federer said would be “quite unbelievable”. “Luckily for me, I managed to bounce back, dig myself out of this hole I was in”. “That was the goal and that was the wish coming here in Cincinnati. I just had to do better”, Williams said.
Taking two different approaches, the top seeds at Cincinnati reached the semifinals on Friday, moving step closer to a title that’s been tough for either of them to win.
He carried that momentum into the second set, nailing down a couple of break points and building a commanding 4-0 advantage.
On the women’s side, Serena Williams needed only 54 minutes to beat Karin Knapp 6-0, 6-2 and advance to the quarterfinals.
The US Open starts on August 31.
WTA Main Draw Singles (Quarter-finals): [1] Serena Williams (USA) d. “I’ve been playing well and I’m looking forward to my next one”.
No. 3 seed Andy Murray recovered from a 5-2 deficit in the third set, survived a match point and beat Grigor Dimitrov 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5.
Williams, who has now won 42 straight matches on U.S. hardcourts, beat Ivanovic in three sets in last year’s Cincinnati final. That did him in as the Serb was able to get plenty of looks on the Wawrinka second serve.
The scoreboard reflected service games with Wawrinka’s power from the base-line and Djokovic’s athleticism up-and-down the court getting the job done in equal measure.
Djokovic stayed alive despite seven double-faults and five breaks of his serve. Novak Djokovic won the 10th game to captured the first set in 35 minutes.
He also continued to feel good physically a week after he received on-court treatment for an elbow ailment at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. “That was the difference”.
“(The) first set I think (I had) 85 percent of first serves in, which definitely helps in these matches to get some free points and to allow myself to relax a little bit more in the return games”, Djokovic said. He went up a break to lead 5-4 in the first set as Wawrinka tussled with consistency.
But the experienced Djokovic pulled back from the brink, levelling at 3-3 after destroying a racquet along the way, and ran out the victor after a tense one and three-quarter hours.
“She came through the qualies and she beat so many great players along the way”, Jankovic, the 2009 champ, said of AKS. “But I’ll just try to go out there and try my best…You never know”.
“Ifs, a lot of ifs”. “I had to unfortunately make that decision”.
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Dolgopolov committed 20 unforced errors as the third set slipped away.
