In what is sure to be a big-hitting affair, Alexander Zverev battles Milos Raonic for a spot in the Australian Open quarterfinals on Monday. On the other side of that section, a fourth-round showdown features Borna Coric and Lucas Pouille.
(4) Alexander Zverev vs. (16) Milos Raonic
Alexander Zverev will take on Milos Raonic for a spot in the Australian Open quarterfinals. The two men met just twice before, both in 2017. They split the wins at one each, with the most recent coming at Wimbledon in a tough five-set affair.
Zverev faced an inspired Jeremy Chardy in the second round and the Frenchman took the world No. 4 to five sets. The German’s other two matches were routine straight-set victories over Aljaz Bedene and Australian wild card Alex Bolt. He should be well rested coming into face the big-serving Canadian.
Raonic’s road to the round of 16 was more impressive than Zverev’s. He dispatched Nick Kyrgios, Stan Wawrinka, and Pierre-Hugues Herbert. His serve, the life blood of his entire game, seems to be clicking nicely. He has 92 aces in the tournament so far.
Zverev won the Nitto ATP Finals in 2018 over heavily favored players Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and comes into the Australian Open poised to make his first-ever deep run at a major (his previous best result was a quarterfinal showing at the French Open last year). He will still need to find inroads on the Raonic serve, but he seems to be playing with plenty of confidence.
Cheryl pick: Zverev in 4
Ricky pick: Raonic in 4
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(11) Borna Coric vs. (28) Lucas Pouille
World No. 12 Borna Coric already has two tour-level wins over Frenchman Lucas Pouille. The two men met most recently on the indoor courts of Vienna, where Coric won in three sets.
Like most of the NextGen players, Coric hasn’t yet made a significant run at a major. His best result came at the U.S. Open in 2018, when he reached the fourth round. But Coric has proven his potential; he defeated Federer twice in 2018, once at the Shanghai Masters where he was a finalist.
Pouille enjoyed a strong start to the 2018 campaign, winning Montpelier and then making the finals in Marseille and Dubai. Unfortunately for him, the second half of his season was far less impressive. The Frenchman lost in the first round of his last two tournaments. Pouille hasn’t faced any top players so far in Melbourne, with wins over world No. 70 Maximilian Marterer, No. 56 Mikhail Kukushkin, and wild card Alexei Popyrin–who is ranked 149th and pushed Pouille to five sets.
Cheryl pick: Coric in 3
Ricky pick: Coric in 4
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Raonic and Coric both in 4.
definitely not Zverev
Zverev cant beat Raonic in this form. Not strong enough on serve or from the back of the court atm.
Coric in 3 maybe 4.
Tiafoe, the Lebron James of tennis has so much upside. Could be a future grand slam winner.
Hope Zverev wins! Roanic has no chance against Novak, but Zverev at least can take a set!
Tiafoe………like him a lot but sorry, i just cant root against my Rafa!! Next time Tiafoe, lol!!!
Raonic looks like he’s about to win the first set. Not so sure he’ll be easy meat for the Djoker this time. Never seen him play the way he’s been playing.
Raonic in 4/5. I hope Pouille in 5.
What happens to Zverev? Why is he looking so flat whilst the older Raonic looks the more energetic and enthusiastic one?
I just tuned in to this match. What on earth is going on with Zverev?
Raonic is cleaning his clock.
Zverev out there looking like the second coming of last night’s Berdych! 😂
What is going on with Zverev? I just tuned in to this match and the lopsided score was shocking.
This is the # 4 seed getting his clock cleaned.
Testing
What is going on with Zverev?
Zverev is having himself a pity party on court. Reminds me a bit of how he played against Tsitsipas in Toronto. It’s just HORRIFIC form from Zverev who couldn’t beat the AO junior champion at the moment.
Zverev’s temper tantrum dud not help him. Destroying his racket was the most effort he has shown in this match. He needs to get some help in slams, because he seems to forget how to play.
There is no reason for Raonic to dominate him like this. Zverev has the weapons to make a match of it. It is quite embarrassing to see him like this.
Ya know, it’s very easy for us to forget that Raonic was one of the best players in the world in the world before getting injured in 2017. It looks to me like it just took him a couple years to get fully healthy and back to his normal level, just like Djokovic. Maybe we should be too surprised by his apparent resurgence?
As for Zverev… he seriously looks like he’s scared out there. He’s playing so timidly and passively, it kinda hurts to watch. The guy just seems to not be cut out for the majors. If it’s best-of-3, he can beat anyone in the world, and is always a title threat. He just can’t seem to be that guy at the majors, which is when it truly matters most.
*SHOULDN’T be too surprised…
There may be something wrong with him, maybe physically? I don’t believe he plays that bad in a R4 match when he was looking great in the earlier rounds.
I don’t see Raonic playing that great really, just normal routine tennis he used to play all along and Zverev not giving him much resistance!
Poor Zverev, why must he play like this at the slams, perhaps after watching Tsitsipas vs Fed, he felt threatened (by Tsitsipas)?
Really? I think he’s been pretty good from the back of the court. But he’s serving insanely well. I know it isn’t related to why Zverev would be losing THIS badly, but when a guy like Raonic is nailing 3/4 of his first serves, he’s going to be a difficult out. The problem is that Zverev has been just so bad on his own serve. If Raonic is serving like this, you have to at least protect your own serve and get him to a tiebreak.
Exactly! Zverev gets only one game in each of set 1 and 2; that’s subpar by his standard. He’s known to serve well and pushing it to TBs is something to be expected. It’s more to do with Zverev’s bad play than Raonic playing well!
Well, Zverev has stepped it up in serve in the 3rd set. He’s held all 3 service games to love, and is 86% first serve.
He’s now only lost 1 point through 4 service games. Where the hell was this Zverev the whole time??
So Zverev lost in straight sets to Raonic. Zverev stepped it up too late in the match, not good enough in the end. What’s the problem with him really?
I wonder if Zverev has some kind of mental block when it comes to playing in a slam. There is just no other explanation. Zverev has is game and his weapons. He has a great serve and big groundstrokes. It takes nothing away from Raonic to say that Zverev was dreadful.
Darren Cahill is talking about Zverev now on ESPN. He said he has never seen him come out like this in a match, so negative and looking up to his box right from the beginning. He said he doesn’t know if it’s physical or mental or what, but he said he could not get it together.
Even the commentators are concerned and somewhat mystified by it. I also think that the more Zverev is unable to advance in slams, the more pressure it creates. He may psyche himself out and not be able to play because of all the poor results.
Must be mental. Zverev finally did get it together in the 3rd set so it can’t have been physical, surely? Very strange.
Not the first time this happened. And looking at Zverev, this won’t be last. Seems an arrogant junk guy , when is he going to put it together. Lost 6-0 in the fifth set to Cung last year.
Highly overrated guy
Zv is 21. Fed looked like dog meat in slams up to that age. Zv still has time but his match v Raonic was just plain weird.
We have a surprise winner in one of today’s matches – Pouille has just beaten Coric in four sets in three hours fifteen minutes. Not bad from Pouille, after going five sets to beat the young Aussie in the previous round. But, what happened to Coric ? I thought he played well in his matches so far?
So we’ll have Raonic vs Pouille in the QF, good chance for Raonic to reach the SF here; he’ll be tough to beat for anyone if he continues to serve so well.