Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic beat Lorenzo Sonego 6-4 7-5 after 1 hour and 47 minutes to secure his spot in the first Masters 1000 semifinal of his career without dropping a set during the week.
Dusan Lajovic saved the first break point in the sixth game of the opening set to hold his serve at deuce. The Serbian player converted his second break point in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead and held his next two service games to close out the opening set 6-4.
Lajovic went up a set and a break in the first game of the second set. The Serbian player saved a break point to hold his serve in the fourth game at deuce to open up a 3-1 lead. Sonego broke back in the sixth game to draw level to 3-3.
Lajovic fended off one set point at 4-5 30-40 in the second set to draw level to 5-5 with a hold of serve at deuce. Lajovic earned the decisive break at 15 in the 11th game and closed out the second set 7-5 on the second match point in the 12th game.
Yesterday he achieved the biggest win of his career with his win over world number 5 player Dominic Thiem.
Lajovic, who is now ranked world number 48, improved on his previous best result at Masters 1000 level achieved last year in Madrid, where he reached the quarter final. Lajovic started playing tennis at the age of 7 by coincidence. Tennis was the only sport available for his age group. He now trains in Barcelona. This year he reached the quarter final in Doha before losing to Marco Cecchinato and achieved his career-high of world number 45.
“Right now it’s a relief and I showed to myself that I could do it. The tournament is not over yet, but I am extremely happy and satisfied with the way I played this week. To be in the semifinals of a Masters 1000 in such a strong tournament, it’s really a big boost of confidence and I hope that it’s not the only one in the future”, said Lajovic.
Lajovic will face either his compatriot Novak Djokovic or Danil Medvedev in the semifinal.
Sonego was not able to become the first qualifier to reach the semifinal at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters. The 23-year-old player from Turin lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter final in Marrakesh before travelling directly to Monte-Carlo, where he dropped a set to get through the qualifying round to reach his back-to-back quarter final after beating Andreas Seppi, Karen Khachanov and Cameron Norrie. It was an impressive result for Sonego, who started playing tennis at the age of 11 under the guidance of his coach Gipo Arbino. He also played football for the youth team of the Torino AC, his favourite club. The Italian player earned his first ATP Ranking point at the age of 19 and scored his first ATP Tour match win at last year’s Australian Open, where he was a 22-year qualifier. He grew up in the myth of his idols Roger Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.