It is hard to play your best tennis when your opponent is playing his best tennis, but if your opponent is this young Ukrainian it is even harder.
Dolgopolov’s game is built in a way that destroys his opponents’ rhythm and confuses them with a continuous variation of spin and speed of the ball.
In the past consistency has always been the issue for the guy from Kiev, but so far it was not the case in California. After taking down Rafael Nadal, he stormed past Italian Fabio Fognini 6-2 6-4.
In the first set the 13th seed stepped on court too insecure and he was immediately overwhelmed by the game of Dolgopolov, who started the match full of confidence, executing his game-plan perfectly and with little to no errors.
The same cannot be said for the Italian, whose famous rants and pantomimes showed up as early as he found himself trapped in the game of the Ukrainian.
Midway through the first set, Fognini reached the highest point of his frustration as he started to undress himself in the middle of the court by going shirtless after an easy miss.
However, the 28th seed was flawless and faced no break points, while the serve of Fognini always looked on the verge of being assaulted.
After the one-way-only first set, the Italian found a better fighting spirit in the second set and despite being always the one on trouble in the early games, it was clear that he was finally adjusting to the variation of the Ukrainian.
In the sixth game, on the score of three all, Fognini finally found the first chances to break his opponent’s serve, but he could not get quite it all done, as, with two aces and one winner, Dolgopolov saved them all and went on holding.
Fognini managed to keep the cool despite the missed chances, but not for much longer.
As the Italian needed his serve the most, serving 5-4 down, he suddenly felt tight and from 40-15 he found himself battling to stay into the match.
Three double faults in the end proved to be costly and Dolgopolov sized the chance to gain his place into the last eight.
