Second round singles action begins on Saturday, featuring seeded players making their 2025 Cincinnati debuts.
After many top players skipped the tournaments in Montreal and Toronto, almost all of the world’s best are present in Cincinnati. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz will be playing their first event since their Wimbledon final, and their only event ahead of the US Open, which begins in two weeks. The same goes for WTA World No.1, Aryna Sabalenka, while the last two Major winners, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek, look to gain some momentum following disappointing performances in Canada.
Saturday’s schedule includes Sinner, Sabalenka, and Swiatek playing their opening matches, with Sabalenka notably facing fellow Major champ Marketa Vondrousova. And teenage phenom Joao Fonseca takes on three-time ATP runner-up this season Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Throughout the tournament, this preview will analyze the day’s two most prominent matches, while highlighting the other notable matches on the schedule. Saturday’s play gets underway at 11:00am local time.
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (17) vs. Joao Fonseca – Fourth on Court 3
For Davidovich Fokina, 2025 can be summed up by the famous words of Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.” Alejandro is 34-19 this season, and recently made his top 20 debut thanks to achieving three ATP finals, in a career where the 26-year-old had previously only achieved one, back in 2022. However, he’s suffered heartbreaking losses in two of those finals. In both cases, Alejandro held a championship point, and lost said championship point by about an inch: due to a net cord in Delray Beach, and due an Alex de Minaur lob catching the outside of the sideline in Washington. Now 0-4 in ATP finals, the Spaniard is still left yearning for his first career title.
By contrast, 18-year-old Fonseca already owns an ATP title, which he won six months ago in Argentina. Yet Joao has failed to build upon that triumph, and is a modest 16-12 this year at tour level. In his Cincinnati debut on Thursday, he narrowly survived a three-setter against Yunchaokete Bu.
In their first career meeting, I give the edge to Davidovich Fokina. He’s won as many ATP matches this season on North American hard courts as Fonseca has won overall, and arrives in good form coming off his latest runner-up trophy two weeks ago in DC. However, Alejandro can often suffer alarming dips in forms, and Joao has all the tools to be a future Major champion , so an upset on this day would also not be shocking.
Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Marketa Vondrousova – Not Before 7:00pm on Center Court
Sabalenka leads the WTA with 47 wins this season, and has become a dominant World No.1, leading the WTA singles rankings by over 4,000 points. But somewhat like Davidovich Fokina, she’s accumulated some considerable scar tissue this year, especially at Majors. Her three-set losses in the finals of the Australian Open (Keys) and Roland Garros (Gauff), as well as her three-set loss in the semifinals of Wimbledon (Anisimova), will be a lot to overcome when she looks to defend her US Open title in a few weeks. Aryna is also the defending champion in Cincinnati, where she’s also reached the semifinals on three other occasions.
Vondrousova has battled multiple injuries since her Wimbledon title in 2023, yet is a solid 10-3 since her latest return to action this past May, with a title run on grass in Berlin. On Thursday, she easily dispatched of Jaqueline Cristian 6-3, 6-1. In her four previous appearances in Cincy, Marketa lost in the first round three times, before advancing to the quarterfinals most recently, in 2023.
These players have split eight prior encounters: Vondrousova took the first two, then Sabalenka won the next four, before Vondrousova claimed the last two. That includes a straight-set victory in that Berlin title run earlier this summer. But in famously-fast conditions in Cincinnati, Aryna and her ferocious power should be favored to advance.
Other Notable Matches on Saturday:
Iga Swiatek (3) vs. Anastasia Potapova – After winning her sixth Major title at Wimbledon, Swiatek fell in the round of 16 of Canada to Clara Tauson. She’s just 8-6 on the fast-playing courts of Cincinnati, but Iga has reached the semifinals here two years running. In her only previous meeting with Potapova, last year at Roland Garros, Swiatek thumped Potapova by a score of 6-0, 6-0.
Jannik Sinner (1) vs. Daniel Galan (Q) – Sinner is now 26-3 on the year, as the winner of the last three hard court Majors now returns to his favorite surface for the first time since January. He’s 2-0 against Galan, and has taken all five sets they’ve contested.
Saturday’s full Order of Play is here.
