More than half the men’s seeds in play, including four of the Top 10, were shocked out of the ATP Rogers Cup in Montreal on a chaotic Wednesday.
No. 3 Stan Wawrinka, No. 5 Tomas Berdych, No. 6 Marin Cilic, No. 9 Gilles Simon, No. 14 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 15 Gael Monfils were all shown the exit, with unseeded Americans and Aussies doing the majority of the upset damage.
“I haven’t played him before so it was a first time, I didn’t know what to expect. I know he hits big,” Young said of Berdych. “I hadn’t started as well as I wanted to and I was missing a lot of shots but then I started to relax a little bit and with confidence from winning a few matches I felt pretty good towards the end.”
“This is a part of the season that I won zero points last year,” said Nadal, who will next meet Russian Mikhail Youzhny. “Every match that I won are points that I add to the computer for my ranking. That’s important for me today. Every victory is important for me. That was a good one. Let’s try tomorrow.”
On the women’s sides five seeds advanced, and five seeds fell on an equally ugly day at the Rogers Cup in Toronto where a former No. 1 and a former two-time Slam champ were shown the door in second round play.
Not much of a surprise was No. 3 Petra Kvitova going out 6-2, 6-3 to former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka after the former announced she was battling mono, but a big surprise was the continued breakthrough of Swiss Belinda Bencic, who out-steadied No. 4 seed Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 7-5.
“It’s two great wins for me, of course, in two days,” said Bencic, coming off a victory over homecountry favorite Genie Bouchard. “I really feel good here in Toronto — I like it very much — so I was hoping it could be a good tournament.”
Top 10 seeds avoiding the upsets were No. 2 Simona Halep beating former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-4; No. 5 Ana Ivanovic edging Belarus qualifier Olga Govortsova 6-4, 7-6(4); and No. 6 Aggie Radwanska defeating German Julia Goerges 7-5, 6-3.
“I tried to be aggressive and take the ball as soon as possible, because I know she has good defense,” said Halep on winning in her first appearance since Wimbledon. “I always played about three hours with her and always had tough matches. I had a long break at home, so it was difficult to come here and right away face one of the hardest players in the world, but I just did everything I could to win.”
Next up for Halep is No. 13 Angelique Kerber, who eased past Puerto Rican qualifier Monica Puig 6-2, 6-3.
berdych, dimitrov, raonic, wawrinka, cilic … they’re all hopeless on hardcourts and their careers are over.
especially berdych. losing to donald young just shows how shot he is. even getting rid of uncle toni won’t help him now.
Think the ATP remotely does anything to Kyrgios? With the way Gimelstob (I know, he’s a tool) was talking it did’t seem like anyone expect much more than a slap on the wrist.
oh, sad for vasek. so close. and surprised stan lost to nick, but watch him win the us open, lol. that’s stan – streak-meister!
I think the ATP draw is BS. I’m going with the conspiracy theory I briefly explain. Let me know. Accident? Coincidence?
Not defending any point at all stands to the advantage of Rafa. From hereon, every win of his will earn him points and I think in another three to four months, we can expect him in the top 5 atleast !!
Nice article, just to correct you, Nole won in two not three sets and Stakhovsky is Ukrainian not Russian:) (though he could be ethnic Russian from Ukraine).
It would be great if you would tweet updates to your blog. It should be very easy to set up, and would surely gain you followers.
Michael youve said this before,but i dont think having no points to defend is any sort of guarantee that you will automatically do well,different players do well at different parts of the season the indoor HC season has never been his strong part of the year,but hope your right though….
He needs to be a little more patient and a lot more accurate before he can challenge the top players, however.
good job novak. wasn’t sure what to expect. sock played a nice match versus rafa at the french and these 2 hadn’t met before.
Practically purring. Damn impressive from Mr Murray Magic. Lots of fab drops and lobs and some great volleying too.
gulbis could actually be a handful for novak tmrw. who knows? when ernests gets going, he gets *going.*
Murray is playing great I think, just wished he come to the net more, today he was 6 out of 6 at the net. Specially against a potential match with Djoko.
The good for him is that he most likelly will play Kei in semis, which is a version of Djoko and will be tested for finals, while Djoko will play either Chardy or Irsner/kyrgios.
Okay there is a chance. But it’s unlikely. Ernie has to be getting tired – this is a streak for him.
Gulbis to serve for the match, lats time he served he face a few BP’s. But if he keeps serving as he has, straight st wins for him.
And then Kyrgios x Isner, which I am kind of curious to see if Kyrgios will be affected by his actions or if he will just play some game.
Oh yeah, Isner and Kyrgios. This will be the first time I have ever rooted for Isner. Just knock him out Big John!
Kyrgios was still jawing, this time with fans. He rushes his serve, seems to show disinterest at times. . . he just doesn’t seem to care very much, evidenced most recently, of course, by his treatment of Stan. He was talking with the one fan while Isner was trying to serve. Ha! Unreal.
Gulbis has a similar disposition. Huge game, but gets distracted, talks a lot. His forehand started to abandon today. If he messes around vs. Novak, short match. Would love to see him give Nole some competition.