The semifinals of the Delray Beach Open are set. No. 3 seed Jack Sock will face fellow American Donald Young, and No. 1 seed Milos Raonic will see No. 7 seed Juan Martín del Potro.
The first match of Quarterfinal Friday was between Sock and No. 5 seed Steve Johnson. The first frame was riddled with inconsistency, resulting in five breaks of serve in 10 games. But Sock was the winner of three of those breaks, and he wound up winning the set 6-4.
The second set was much cleaner and had no breaks at all. Sock won the tiebreak 7-4, advancing to the semifinals without ever getting into any real trouble.
Sock will play Donald Young on Saturday at 3 p.m. local time. Young advanced on a walkover after Steve Darcis withdrew due to personal reasons.
@stevedarcishark withdraws from QF in Delray Beach. Pitty but his little girl has to undergo surgery next week. Possible return in Miami.
— Dewulf Filip (@FilipDewulf72) February 24, 2017
Young, ranked 69th in the world, has been on a surprisingly good run lately, recording wins against Taylor Fritz, Ivo Karlović, Reilly Opelka, John Isner and Adrian Mannarino, all in the last two weeks. This will be his second consecutive semifinal.
Sock has a 2-0 career record against Young, with one victory in each of the past two years.
Jack Sock into another SF this year. Will face Young tomorrow.
JS back on top 20 on Monday. Possible career high #18 with a title.
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) February 24, 2017
In doubles action, Lu Yen-hsun and Leander Paes defeated top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan in a super tiebreak, 7-6(4), 2-6, 10-7.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ6vWDzjEby/
To kick off the night session, No. 8 seed Kyle Edmund took on Raonic. While Raonic is the more accomplished player, Edmund executed better in the first set, breaking to go up 4-3 and staying ahead to win the set 6-4.
But Raonic found his game just in time, going on a tear to win the second set 6-3 and the third 6-4.
In the main event, defending champion Sam Querrey squared off against fan favorite del Potro. When the pair met in the semifinals of last year’s tournament, Querrey won 5 and 5.
But this time, the roles were reversed. Del Potro won in two nearly identical sets. In each of them, he broke Querrey’s serve at 5-5 to take a 6-5 lead and then serve it out for 7-5.
Del Potro d. Querrey 75 75. Key vs. Delpo, as Dzumhur showed, seems to be going to FH to get to BH. Sam tried to attack straight at BH.
— Steve Tignor (@SteveTignor) February 25, 2017
Del Potro will go up against Raonic at 8 p.m. on Saturday. While they have a 1-1 head-to-head record, they have not played each other since 2013.
