Familiar foes Dominic Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas will battle for a semifinal spot in Barcelona on Friday. The schedule also includes a showdown between Grigor Dimitrov and Pablo Carreno Busta, with both players coming off wins in third-set tiebreakers.
Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. (3) Dominic Thiem
Thiem and Tsitsipas will be going head-to-head for the third time in their careers and for the third time this season when they meet again during quarterfinal action at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell on Friday. Both of their previous encounters have gone the way of Thiem, who prevailed 7-5, 6-4 in Dubai and 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 at the Indian Wells Masters. A move from hard courts to clay should only help the world No. 7, who is a two-time French Open semifinalist and was clearly the second best clay-courter in the world behind Rafael Nadal last season. Thiem is tied for the 2018 lead in match victories (21) with Juan Martin Del Potro, and 10 have come on the slow stuff–including a title in Buenos Aires, a quarterfinal finish in Monte-Carlo, and Barcelona wins over Jaume Munar and Jozef Kovalik.
Tsitsipas has already more than doubled his previous lifetime ATP-level match win total (four) during this season alone (nine). The 19-year-old Greek is looking especially adept on clay, with successful qualification and a second-round showing in Monte-Carlo followed by victories this week at the expense of Corentin Moutet, Diego Schwartzman, and Albert Ramos-Vinolas. Still, those opponents are not even in the same ballpark as Thiem on this surface and the fact that Tsitsipas has already lost twice to the Austrian on hard courts does not bode well for his chances.
Pick: Thiem in 2
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(5) Pablo Carreno Busta vs. (2) Grigor Dimitrov
Whereas Thiem and Tsitsipas are a combined 10-0 in total sets this week, Dimitrov and Carreno Busta battled into the Barcelona quarterfinals the hard way on Thursday. Dimitrov saved two match points before outlasting Malek Jaziri 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(8), while Carreno Busta fought off three match points and finally converted his fifth to hold off Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(6). The latter was a much-needed win for the 11th-ranked Spaniard, who made a semifinal run in Miami but missed the Monte-Carlo Masters due to a back injury and has plenty of points to defend in the coming weeks (title in Estoril, quarterfinal at the French Open). Carreno Busta, who opened with a 6-3, 6-3 rout of Benoit Paire, is 8-2 in his last 10 matches after starting the season 4-5.
Dimitrov is also heating up nicely on clay after going 1-4 in his last five hard-court matches. The fifth-ranked Bulgarian reached the Monte-Carlo semifinals (lost to Nadal) and preceded his thriller against Jaziri by destroying Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-1. Although Dimitrov leads this head-to-head series 3-2, he has lost each of his past two clay-court meetings with Carreno Busta–both in straight sets, including a lopsided 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 affair at the 2017 French Open. On this surface and at home in Spain, a slight edge goes to the No. 5 seed.
Pick: Carreno Busta in 3
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who ya got?
Baby ex-GOAT FTW.
Thiem in three; PCB in three.
End of the road for Tsitsipas. Thiem in 2.
Picked Dimitrov in the bracket but something is off – a drifting mind I think lately. PCB in 3
Tsitsipas plays like Fed; he’s modeling his game after Fed’s, moving forward to the net so often after realizing he couldn’t handle Thiem’s heavy groundstrokes from the baseline.
Stefanos is good! This kid is playing gutsy tennis and sure deserves to win!
Wow, Thiem completely outplayed out there! Well done, Stefanos! Good news for Greece!
Theim cost me my rent money. I’m screwed. Always when this dude is supposed to win he loses.
Match was 100% fixed. Tennis is having a major problem with this.
What?
Why do you think this?
It’s in the news right now ed but the major problem is with lower ranked players tanking, not top 10.
In my opinion, it’s fueled by low prize money for players outside the Top 30.
Can only be fixed with a proper players union like pretty much every other professional sport has, except tennis.
excerpt:
In the course of its investigation, the panel was told by one betting operator that “the situation in tennis was grimmer than grim”.
But report author Lewis maintained that suspicious matches were more suited to lower levels of tennis where a blend of factors came together to create “a fertile breeding ground”.
Chief among them include the number of players struggling to make a living, few people watching the matches in person and the ITF’s decision to sell official live scoring data in 2012, making betting on lower-ranked matches far easier to achieve.
“Only the top 250 females and 350 male players are making enough money to break even before coaching costs, yet there are 15,000 nominally professional players,” Lewis said. “It’s a small step for a player who already intends to lose for other reasons to then bet or inform others of his or her intentions so as to make enough money to continue playing.”
https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/43894806
I not aware it is in the news right now but I do remember Davydenko was often under suspicion during his career.
It mostly happens with lower ranked players, but Theim for about 10 straight points didn’t even attempt. Just pathetic. When a tournament purse like this (2 million) can easily be outweighed with a nice fix fee while you can rest for Roland. I mean a “clay court master” not even trying. The ankle stuff is BS
I guess lots of betting people lost their shirts today.
This young man is clearly a future top player if he can remain injury free.
Commiserations to Ricky
Ricky’s used to it by now.
#5SRealDeal
Just watched the replay. Theim still hampered by his ankle problem.
Thiem was poor in his previous match.Too many loose points.
What I liked about 5S was his confidence and lack of nerves towards the end. So confident. He has real deal potential. Fun to watch this guy.
Klizan has taken a set off GOAT in all four matches they’ve played including two on clay, one of which was at RG 2013. He just might end GOAT’s 40-set win streak on clay.
We gonna see.
Vamos GOAT!!!
Correction: THREE matches played and just the one of which was on clay.
Wash your mouth out Mr. Hawieye
How can you think that let alone say it out loud.
Rafa down a break late in the 2nd set.
Looks like my original post is gonna be correct after all!
#ForeshadowIsEverywhere
You got lucky Hawkeye!
You realise I would have held you responsible if Rafa’s streak of two-set wins had come to an end 😉
That makes two of us ed!
Thiem hasn’t looked that impressive thus far in the clay season. So I don’t think it’s that shocking that he lost. I also don’t think he would fake an ankle injury. He’s coming off s knee injury.
Dimi has not looked that great so far in his matches. He loses to PCB.
Com’on Rafa. For goodness sake, get a move on and break back now.
Clay-zan
lol
Really surprising to see Rafa play so well in the first set and then come out and get broken in his first game of the second set.
Rafa running out of time here. His steak may be over.
STREAK may be over! *
Streak saved for now.
Vamos GOAT!
No thanks to you Hawkeye,
Far too many loose errors from Nadal in the 2nd set however.
Yes, Rsfa gets the break and has a chance to win this set. Get this done in two sets!
Gutsy play from Rafa.
Faking injuries. If a tennis player is actually injured, you can be sure they will just retire instead of trying to play. Why risk further injury and risk not playing in the next major??? Much fixed.