Posted on October 25 2018

Marius Copil provided the big shock of the day yesterday as he beat an out of form Marin Cilic 7-5 7-6 in Basel. 93 ranked Copil overcame world number 6 Cilic to take his place in the quarterfinal where he will face 20-year-old American Taylor Fritz.

The only other players through to the quarterfinals so far are Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev. Tsitsipas looked full of confidence as he came through against Peter Gojowczyk in double quick time, 6-3 6-1.

He will now meet 22-year-old Daniil Medvedev in a battle of two highly promising youngsters. Both players had good weeks last week, with Tsitsipas winning the Stockholm Open and Medvedev making the semi-finals in Moscow. World number 20 Medvedev has a 2 and 0 record against Tsitsipas having won both their encounters this year, but Tsitsipas seems to have pushed on to a new level recently and will be hoping to back up his result in Stockholm with more success here.

The main attraction is still to come in Basel though, with home favorite Roger Federer set to take to the court later this evening. Federer takes on world number 52 Jan-Lennard Struff in the pairs third meeting of the year. Federer has a perfect record against Struff and will be hoping to come through in easier fashion than his first round match.

Federer was made to work hard in the first round against Filip Krajinovic, eventually coming through 6-2 4-6 6-4. Federer will be eager to avoid too many more long matches if he is to defend his title and win his 9th title at this event.

Over in Vienna, Kei Nishikori was the winner in our match of the day, beating Karen Khachanov 6-2 6-2. This game really failed to take off, with Khachanov unable to repeat the kind of form that helped him win in Moscow last week.

Nishikori will now face the winner of number 1 seed Dominic Thiem vs Sam Querrey in the quarterfinal and will be tough to beat in this kind of form. Other second-round winners in Vienna include Marton Fucsovics, who picked up a big win against Fabio Fognini, Fernando Verdasco, Born Coric, and Kevin Anderson.

Our pick for match of the day yesterday didn’t prove to be one for the history books, but we’re confident tomorrow’s matchup between Coric and Anderson will be well worth watching! The contrasting styles of the two players should make for some really good tennis, and we are looking forward to watching.

We’re big fans of Coric, but on this occassion, we’re tipping the big South African to win. Coric had a week off last week, but it’s still tough to follow up performances like his Shanghai finals appearance with long runs in the following tournaments. This might just be a step too far for Coric.