Thursday’s order of play in Madrid will see the Women’s Quarter-finals and the Men’s Third Round played in their entirety. On the Men’s side, Rafael Nadal will look to break John McEnroe’s record of 49-straight sets won on a single surface. However, there are other matches on the schedule that will likely be tighter affairs. On the Women’s side, the action is headlined by the two top remaining seeds squaring off in a rematch from last year’s Roland Garros semifinals.
Simona Halep vs. Karolina Pliskova
This is also a rematch from the Australian Open quarter-finals earlier this year, where Halep won comfortably in straight sets. Simona leads their head-to-head 6-1, with Pliskova’s only victory coming in Fed Cup. Halep was not at the top of her game coming into Madrid, but she’s dropped only nine games in six sets thus far this week. That includes a victory just yesterday over Karolina’s sister, Kristyna. Karolina is on an eight-match win streak, and is the hotter player at the moment. However, it’s hard to look beyond her startlingly one-sided career record against Halep. The world number one’s movement and defensive skills have stifled Pliskova’s power in the past, and will likely do so again on Thursday. But if Pliskova can overcome the two-time French Open finalist, she immediately becomes one of the favorites at Roland Garros.
Dominic Thiem vs. Borna Coric
A year ago, Thiem was the clear second-best clay court player. In fact, Thiem is the last man to take a set off Rafael Nadal on clay. In 2018 though, the terra baute hasn’t been as kind to Dominic so far. Coming off an ankle injury that forced him to retire from Indian Wells and withdraw from Miami, his clay results have not been as strong as last year. He took just two games from Nadal in a harsh defeat in Monte Carlo, and was upset by 19-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Barcelona quarter-finals. Just last night, he barely squeezed out a victory over Federico Delbonis 7-5 in the third. It’s actually Coric who comes into this match in better form. Borna already has 17 wins on the year, and has looked strong this week in Madrid. He took out the ninth seed Pablo Carreno Busta in his opening round, and dropped just two games yesterday to Jan-Lennard Struff. Coric and Thiem have split their two previous meetings, the most recent of which took place in this same tournament just last year. Thiem won rather easily on that day, but I suspect this match will be much more complicated. I give the nod to Coric to pull off the upset.
