It will be two-a-days for most of the players remaining in the Cincinnati draw on Friday. Juan Martin Del Potro and David Goffin have already advanced to set up a quarterfinal showdown later on the schedule.
(11) David Goffin vs. (4) Juan Martin Del Potro
Del Potro and Goffin will be squaring off for the fourth time in their careers when they both play their second matches of the day in the Western & Southern Open quarterfinals on Friday evening. Only two of their previous encounters have been completed, as Del Potro retired in the second set from their Rome Masters meeting a few months ago. They faced each other twice in 2016, with Goffin getting the job done 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in Shanghai before the Argentine exacted revenge 7-5, 6-3 shortly thereafter in Basel.
This has been an impressive and much-needed Cincinnati run for Goffin, who had been a mere 21-13 during an injury-plagued season prior to this week. The 11th-ranked Belgian has advanced by beating Benoit Paire in three sets in addition to red-hot opponents Stefanos Tsitsipas and Kevin Anderson in straights.
Del Potro booked his spot in the quarters by following up a first-round bye with victories over Jeremy Chardy and Nick Kyrgios. An entertaining affair with Kyrgios saw the first two sets split in tiebreakers, but the Australian disappeared in the third as Del Potro cruised 6-2. The world No. 3 and Indian Wells champion is now 34-12 for what has been his most consistent–and, more importantly, one of his healthiest–years on tour.
Even in fine physical shape, however, two matches in one day is far from ideal for Del Potro. Goffin will force him to play plenty of long points and unless Cincinnati’s fourth seed hits his opponent off the court quickly, it may be too long of a day at the office.
Pick: Goffin in 3
[polldaddy poll=10082862]
who ya got?
del Potro in 3.
BTW del Potro defeated Chung in the second round.
Two of my favorites. I pick Delpo. But I side with Ricky’s take that it might be too much for Delpo – rather not see him struggle. If Delpo can get it done in 2, that would be good.
Wee wizard wins in 3
Congrats to Ricky!
Oh no, in 2 …..2 tie breaks. Didn’t seem like Delpo pushed it too hard.
Damn. Fed be spraying balls everywhere tonight! 26 unforced errors thus far. I think Fed might be about to lose to Stan.
Oh no. Don’t like him losing to Stan. Not a good sign.
he didnt
Oh boy… we got Grumpy Old Man Fed tonight. I think it’s pretty clear that every since that Indian Wells final loss to Del Po, he has not been able to find the level he wants to be at- and it shows big time in his relative mental fragility in recent months. He’s had pretty good patches, but when he’s lost, it’s come with some sort of collapse. Tonight it’s also technical problems, but it’s typically been big mental collapse.
I’m not willing to say yet whether he’s began the slow decline that can’t be avoided, or if it’s a rough patch from that he can rebound from. But there’s no question that he’s struggling mentally, and it’s a far cry from the relative mental toughness that we saw from him last year.
It’s crazy how poorly Fed is serving, but still hasn’t faced a break point… He’s won 83% of his first serve points, and 72% of his second serve points, and has only served 50%.
Ouch. Fed could rue the opportunity rue the break point to serve for the set that he just squandered…
2nd tiebreak, here we go! Let’s see what Stan is made of here. We all know how badly he wants to get that coveted non-clay win over Fed!
Stan plays very well imo. I’m surprised he’s so good even on quick HC, or is it Fed isn’t playing that well? Seems to me that among the big three, Rafa is/was playing the best tennis so far. Djoko is not playing well imo, just managed to scrape through barely, capitalizing on his opponents’ even poorer play (Dimi, Raonic).
I’m waiting to see if Fed could turn this match around after winning the second set; I’m a little surprised that Stan is doing so well against Fed on Fed’s best Masters surface ie Cincy.
The thing is, it’s easy to underestimate Stan because of his inconsistency, but I feel pretty confident in saying that any player who has won both the AO and the US Open is capable of winning on any outdoor hardcourt. And he is clearly much closer to his physical best than he was earlier in the season. Also, at last year’s AO, Stan pushed him really far, and that was a court like this one.
At the same time, there is no question that Fed is just not playing as well as he did at the beginning of this year. Tonight has been the worse I’ve seen him from s technical standpoint in a long time. I haven’t seen him make this many unforced errors, and he extremely riled up mentally and cranky. On serve he’s been incredible. His overall serve percentage has not been good, and he’s hardly lost that many points on serve. However, I agree with you, Lucky, that Rafa appears to be the favorite for the US Open, imo. Fed and Novak are both capable of upping their level at the majors, but from what we’ve seen this far, I would say that Rafa looks more solid than both Novak and Fed right now.
Like I said before, I think it’s too soon to tell if this is just sort of the natural beginning of the end for Fed, or if he still has another bounce-back in him. We should have all learned our lesson by now that we can’t ever write off any of those 3 guys again until they have hung their racquet up for good.
He’s 37.
Play is resuming now!
Stan vs Fed at least is more interesting a match with both hitting well in rallies to win the point, unlike Dimi vs Djoko when Dimi only knew how to slice his BH CC back to Djoko and waiting for errors and Dimi was so one dimensional in that match.
Raonic too, just staying at the baseline to try and rally with Djoko, strange, he thought he could out rally Djoko from the baseline? He could do better rushing the net after his serve to at least rush Djoko a bit and perhaps extracted some errors out of Djoko’s racket.
Among the ‘lost’ generation, I’m surprised it’s Goffin who’s finding his groove here at Cincy; he’s playing very well and beating two top ten players B2B, I haven’t seen him played so well lately, good on him. Maybe, he’s thinking of winning here and getting back into top eight and gets a top eight seeding at USO?
Tough for Goffin to go all the way. Cincy is a very quick surface, maybe second fastest after Shanghai. Goffin can trouble Fed but I doubt he can win two sets.
Jeez. Fed’a Downfall this match has been his failure to convert break points. 0-6 now. Stan can be really tough on breakpoints. Stan cracked at the end of the 2nd tiebreak, but aside from that he has come up big in all the other important moments thus far. Fed has had the most chances, but has played poorly when it really counted.
Fed is going to win this match, breaking Stan’s serve at last. He’s going to hold serve till the end I’m sure.
Fed Wawrinka was a good watch just like DelPo-Kyrgios. Somehow Djoker matches are grind fest.
Tremendous effort by the fed to win in three. The old man simply refuses to go down. With that serve he can keep the matches short even when it goes three sets
Three out of four ain’t bad…
hawkbert
AUGUST 13, 2018 AT 1:53 PM
Djokovic over Cilic
Federer over Anderson
Federer over Djokovic
(Tomorrow, Ricky will finally come around and agree with my pretournament pick for the final.)
#CongratsToMe
#Humb1e