Is the Western & Southern Open really the Novak Djokovic Closed?
In an already depleted draw, Roger Federer crashed out of Cincinnati with a third-round loss to Andrey Rublev on Thursday afternoon. Rafael Nadal skipped the event after triumphing in Montreal, so Djokovic is the lone member of the Big 3 remaining. In fact, Djokovic is the only top-eight seed and only top-seven player left.
The world No. 1 will continue his campaign with a second career contest against Lucas Pouille during quarterfinal action on Friday night. Djokovic dominated their only previous meeting 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 in this year’s Australian Open semifinals.
Pouille has made a habit throughout his career of being all-or-nothing at tournaments. The Aussie Open, of course, was one of his best–but he has also suffered a flurry of first-round losses dating back to the start of last season. The good Pouille is suddenly back in Cincinnati, where he has advanced with victories over Denis Kudla, Denis Shapovalov, and Karen Khachanov.
“It’s been a while,” the 31st-ranked Frenchman said. “I’m just very happy to be in the form I am right now, to be in the quarterfinals.”
He will have to be even better against Djokovic, who won Wimbledon in dramatic fashion and has maintained his fine form with straight-set defeats of Sam Querrey and Pablo Carreno Busta this week. The top-seeded Serb started slow against Querrey but was ruthless from start to finish in a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Carreno Busta on Thursday evening.
“I don’t think the score indicates how tough it was on the court,” Djokovic reflected. “We battled it out. I think I was serving really well. That was probably the best shot in the [match] tonight for me, over 70 percent of first serves in. Got me out of trouble in the second set when I was facing break points.”
Any kind of similar performance will be more than enough to see off Pouille, who has earned only one top-five win in his entire career.
Pick: Djokovic in 2 losing 5-7 games
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Djokovic in 2. 6-3, 6-3
Kind of expected that Djoko would win. Maybe Khachanov could offer more resistance but still would lose.
I doubt Medvedev could do the job either. Djoko is the hot favourite for the title.