A pair of rematches will headline the Tuesday schedule in Cincinnati, where familiar foes Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov are set for a second straight first-round encounter. Nikoloz Basilashvili and Andrey Rublev are also in action.
Stan Wawrinka vs. Grigor Dimitrov
Again? Yes, Wawrinka and Dimitrov will be facing each other for the fifth time since Wimbledon last summer and for the fourth time during this stretch in a first-round match when they clash at the Western & Southern Open on Tuesday. Wawrinka leads the head-to-head series 6-4 after most recently getting the job done 6-4, 6-4 in round one of last week’s Rogers Cup. The 23rd-ranked Swiss has won four in a row at Dimitrov’s expense, including 11 consecutive sets.
Nothing suggests anything will be different this time around. Dimitrov is a nightmarish 1-6 since losing to none other than Wawrinka 7-6(5), 7-6(4), 7-6(8) during third-round action at the French Open this spring. Wawrinka ended up losing to eventual semifinalist Karen Khachanov 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-2 in the Montreal second, but at least that means he will be well-rested for Cincinnati. The 34-year-old should extend Dimitrov’s woes without too much trouble.
Pick: Wawrinka in 2
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(Q) Andrey Rublev vs. (15) Nikoloz Basilashvili
Basilashvili and Rublev will be going head-to-head for the second time this summer and for the third time in 2019 when they meet again on Tuesday. They just faced each other in the Hamburg final, with Basilashvili surviving a high-quality, huge-hitting contest 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 to go back-to-back at that tournament. The 17th-ranked Georgian is 2-0 lifetime at Rublev’s expense, having previously prevailed 6-3, 6-4 on the hard courts of Doha.
Rublev has already fared well in Cincinnati, qualifying for the main draw with victories over Bernard Tomic (via first-set retirement) and eventual lucky loser Mikhail Kukushkin. The 21-year-old Russian is finally healthy again and will be back in the top 70 next week. Basilashvili is coming off a third-round performance in Montreal, where he played a trio of three-setters (lost to Alexander Zverev). The 17th-ranked Georgian really has not done a whole lot the past 13 months outside of Hamburg, and two Cincinnati matches already under his belt should give Rublev a decent shot at a minor upset.
Pick: Rublev in 3
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WWW?
Basilashvili in 3
Wawrinka in 2
I was fortunate enough to be at the Wka-Dtrov match at Roland Garros ( in the bull ring!) and it was SOOOO close….could have gone either way, so I’m taking Dtrov in 3, and Rublev in 3.
Not that I’ve kept track but when Dimi is in matches so close they could go either way, don’t they usually go the other guy’s way?
These days Dimitrov’s matches all seem to go the other guy’s way😒 Just look at his current ranking! Since I’ve never been a fan I haven’t kept up to date with his career arc, but the problems seem to be mostly mental.
His career had ups and downs before, but the most serious slide started for some reason after the best win of his career, when he won the 2017 year-end championship in London.
Come to think of it, winning that year-end tournament hasn’t brought a lot of luck for three years in a row now: Andy Murray’s health started to let him down badly after he won the championship in 2016 and heroically wrangled away the year-end No.1 ranking from Novak. Dimitrov’s career started to unravel after his win in 2017, and Zverev is going downhill after winning in 2018. The respective reasons for these negative developments are wildly different of course. But the serious decline of these three players manifested itself soon after the win in London.
Zverev has probably the best chances to recover eventually since he is still very young and his ranking hasn’t seriously taken a dive – yet. So far he is still near the top ten. But while not being a youngster anymore, Dimitrov could still salvage his career, too.
As to the upcoming match: Wawa seems to be in much better shape atm.
Maybe there’s a curse on doing well at the WTF. Goffin hasn’t been the same since he made the final in 2017, largely due to a string of bizarre injuries. Jack Sock’s career took a nose dive after winning Paris and making the Top Ten. Murray was probably doomed to hip issues, but I expect it was exacerbated by the big push he made for #1 in the fall of 2016. I think winning four majors in a row took the starch out of Djokovic for quite awhile. He just was not the same after finally winning RG in 2016.
I think it was the US Open in 2016 where it started to go downhill for him. Bizarre incident involving a gong, he went on to lose.
The courts at Cincy is slower than that at Montreal. The CPI at Cincy is 37 whilst that at Montreal is 42 or 43. Do they play with the same type of balls at both places? Cincy does look slower to me. Will this favour Djoko more than Fed?
I think its much more humid in Cinci.
It seemed that Dimi just couldn’t sustain any good form during a match for long; more often than not, he managed to lose the plot even when he had the upper hand.