TENNIS – Rafael Nadal’s loss was surely the biggest surprise of the day, if not the biggest of the week so far as he fell by the hands of Ukrainian Aleksandr Dolgopolov. Andy Murray struggled against Jiri Vesely, while Wawrinka seemed to be well ready as he crushed past Andreas Seppi. Giulio Gasparin
Rafael Nadal’s loss was surely the biggest surprise of the day, if not the biggest of the week so far as he fell by the hands of Ukrainian Aleksandr Dolgopolov. Andy Murray struggled against Jiri Vesely, while Wawrinka seemed to be well ready as he crushed past Andreas Seppi.
Dolgopolov’s win over the world number one surely comes as a surprise, but probably not as much if a few details were taken into consideration before this match.
Nadal struggled quite a lot to overcome his first hurdle of the tournament and it was clear that the game produce against Stepanek would have not been enough against the Ukrainian.
The 28th seed had lots to think about though, as he almost saw the win slipping away from his hands. He was comfortably leading in the deciding third set by 5-2, when he suddenly felt the pressure and the comeback of Nadal.
Once the match went down to a final tiebreak it seemed like everything was going in favour of the top seed, but Dolgopolov managed to regroup just when no one would expect him to and by recovering from 4-2 behind, he could close 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5) in 2h21.
The Ukrainian will now face the 13th seed, Fabio Fognini, who pulled out one of his famous shows to edge past another crowd-entertainer, Gael Monfils, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.
In his match, the Italian seemed to comfortable lead, when suddenly he suffered the French comeback and suddenly he found himself forced to a third set.
Once there he failed to capitalize a break lead and went on falling a break behind just in time to give Monfils a chance to serve for the match. Fognini found the cool when it most counted though, broke back and won the next two games too for.
Andy Murray, who is still on his way to a full comeback after the back problems, will face Canadian Milos Raonic in the next round, after finding a way out in a match where Vesely, former junior number one, was leading of a set and a break, both in the second and third set. 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 was the final result in favour of the Brit.
Australian Open winner Wawrinka keeps his impressive season going as he crushed with ease Italian Andreas Seppi 6-0, 6-2. He will now face a-hot-form Kevin Anderson, who edged past Evgeny Donskoy in three sets.
The last two matches of the day produces the ever-going match up of the veterans as Roger Federer and Tommy Haas are set to face each other for the 16th time.
Haas needed to beat Kei Nishikori 7-6, 6-2 to reach the fourth round, while Federer needed to tiebreaks to defeated Dmitry Tursunov.
