There were some surprising results at the National Bank Open on Wednesday afternoon. Among the seeded players crashing out of this Masters 1000 tournament in their first match were Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev, and Alexander Zverev.
Tsitsipas, who won the Los Cabos title on Saturday, lost to Gael Monfils 6-4, 6-3 in the second round. Monfils double-faulted seven times, but he saved all three of the break points he faced and broke Tsitsipas three times to advance after one hour and 25 minutes.
The 36-year-old Frenchman is joined in the third round by Mackenzie McDonald and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who also enjoyed routine days at the office despite facing heavily favored opponents. McDonald ousted Rublev 6-4, 6-3, while Davidovich Fokina crushed Zverev 6-1, 6-2.
Another surprising player in the last 16 is Canada’s own Milos Raonic. Back from injury following a two-year absence, Raonic treated the home crowd to wild win over Frances Tiafoe on Monday night and then made quicker 6-4, 6-3 work of Taro Daniel on Wednesday afternoon.
“[The Tiafoe] match was difficult physically (and) emotionally on Monday,” the 32-year-old commented. “So to come back today and play a pretty clean match, it counts. It makes a difference today. It will make a difference for tomorrow, as well, so that’s something to be happy about.
“To be honest, after playing well in the first round, having not played many matches back-to-back in a very long time, I really didn’t expect to play that well today. I knew it would be difficult. I know that one of the more difficult things is picking stuff up and carrying it from one day to the next and having that continuity. So I was very aware of that kind of potentially being the case.
“But I thought I did things pretty well, and I think I can play better tomorrow. So hopefully, I can build off that.”
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this gonna be one of THOSE tournaments???
Not unusual for this tournament.
Well done to Foki and Gael! (Think both outcomes were well within the realm of possibility.)