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RESULTS 🎾

💥 = Beatdown \\ 🤕 = Injury \\ ‼️ = Upset \\ 🤯 = Epic

Featured Matches

— Nadal d Pella: 6-3, 6-4

TL;DW: Overall, a pretty impressive performance from Nadal, who looked far sharper than he had in his opening Rd vs Evans. One blip in the 2nd set, where Rafa donated his break advantage with a bunch of forehand unforced errors, was the only rocky patch for the Spaniard. And the top seed still managed to break straight back, and cruise to a pretty routine win (despite missing his first 3 match points). This matchup is a bad one for Pella simply because of the disparity in firepower. Nadal finished with 24 winners compared to Pella’s measly 7. And if you take away aces and 1-2 punches, the story is even more of a contrast: Rafa finished with 14 rally winners, to Pella’s 2. Rafa will be a bit concerned with his forehand pretty much falling apart towards the end of the match, finishing with 18 forehand unforced errors (most of which were committed in that 2nd set). However, conditions were very gusty this evening, which almost definitely played a part.

What’s next for Nadal? Plays Fognini tomorrow.

— Thiem d Cilic: 7-6(7), 6-4

TL;DW: A really impressive win for Thiem. The Austrian is clearly trying to make changes for the hard court season, and he was far more patient and higher-margin than we usually see from him at this time of year. After one set played, Thiem had sliced 76% of his backhands, compared to his usual range of 30-50%. Some nice blocked returns also worked well vs Cilic, and got Thiem into plenty of the Croatian’s service games. — Saw a few of these from Thiem today. Signs he’s looking to be more patient on return. (TennisTV) After a high quality first 12 games, Thiem managed to come through a nervy 1st set tiebreaker, in which both players made poor errors to surrender multiple mini-breaks. The 2nd set then featured Cilic’s temper boiling over and Thiem taking full advantage. The Austrian was particularly impressive, and calm, when break point down today, saving 9/9 BP’s (compared to 3/4 for Cilic). High margin aggression is the name of the game for Thiem this hard court season.

What’s next for Thiem? Plays Medvedev tomorrow.

— Khachanov d Auger-Aliassime: 6-7(7), 7-5, 6-3

TL;DW: Complete and utter mess of a first set, in terribly difficult, windy conditions, which featured more mistakes than a spellcheck on Brad Gilbert’s Twitter feed. 44 unforced errors, out of 83 total points played, to be exact. Khachanov was up a break, at 3*-2, and then up two set points in the opening set tiebreaker. The Russian handed the break back with a string of mistakes, but the two set points, and eventual turnaround of the tiebreak, was down to some superb tennis by Auger-Aliassime. A stunning passing shot to save the second set point was the highlight, but two excellent serves to bring about, and then convert, a set point of his own, were perhaps even more impressive from the young Canadian. Especially given that FAA had been suffering from the double fault yips for much of the set. The mess spilt over into set two, with the players still spraying errors (35 combined), FAA still committing double faults a’ plenty (6 for the set alone), and more breaks of serve. FAA was twice a break up, but each time donated the lead back with a string of mistakes, with Khachanov occupying the role as the less bad player in the end (which was all that was required to take this to a decider). Bizarre. The third featured more of the same. But this time Khachanov didn’t let his lead slip like FAA did in the 2nd. Good, if incredibly poor quality, win for the Russian. The players combined for 98(!!) unforced errors out of 214 total points (to just 54 winners). 12 of those errors were FAA double faults, and the Canadian will likely be looking to book some very long training sessions to sort out that glaring weakness in his game (I’m putting together a video analysis of his serve). This will go down as one of the worst combined serving performances of the season, with the 2nd set featuring more breaks (7) than service holds (5). Khachanov improved his level and consistency somewhat in that 3rd set, but he’ll hope his matches going forward are less of an error fest (and that there’s less wind).

What’s next for Khachanov? Plays Zverev tomorrow.

— Zverev d Basilashvili: 7-5, 5-7, 7-6(5)

TL;DW: Zverev was a set up, and had BP’s to serve for the match in the 2nd. The German was then also up a break in the 3rd set, before double faulting his lead away (15 DF’s total today). But importantly for Zverev, despite this match giving the FAA vs Khachanov contest a run for its money as ‘trainwreck of the day’, he got the W. And with it, another vital chunk of momentum. I doubt the German cares how these wins come, as long as they do:

What’s next for Zverev? Plays Khachanov tomorrow.

Also:

Fognini d Mannarino : 6-2, 7-5

Medvedev d Garin : 6-3, 6-3

Monfils d Hurkacz : 6-4, 6-0

Bautista Agut d Gasquet: 7-5, 7-5

SHOTS OF THE DAY 😮

— Thiem vaporising a backhand. Look at that side spin! (TennisTV)

— Another angle:

— FAA saving a set point, in the 1st set tiebreaker, in serious style. (TennisTV)

— Khachanov with a backhand bullet. (TennisTV)

— Brilliant point. Nadal sends up the perfect lob and Pella responds with a skyhook-esque piece of defence. (TennisTV)

— SKYHOOK from Nadal. Outrageous. 🔥

— Another angle:

— Hurkacz does so well to make up the ground after that nasty net cord, but then had to deal with a great Monfils flick as well. (TennisTV)

— Bautista Agut breaking Gasquet’s heart with a ridiculous forehand (and game), breaking for the first set. (TennisTV)

— Sliding, slice passing shot from RBA. (TennisTV)

— Same game as the GIF above. RBA on fire. (TennisTV)

INTERVIEW/PRESSER BEST BITS🎤

Khachanov after beating Auger-Aliassime:

“Sometimes it's called winning ugly 🤷‍♂️.”

— I was doing some bullshit. Hall of fame presser quote.

Nadal on rejoining the ATP Player Council alongside Roger Federer (more info on this in ‘Extra’s’ section):

ORDER OF PLAY FOR FRIDAY (Quarter-Finals) 📅

COURT CENTRAL

— 12pm Montreal (ET), 5pm UK —

🇦🇹 Thiem vs Medvedev 🇷🇺 (H2H: 2-0) (Hard H2H: 1-0)

Prediction: Thiem in 3

🇩🇪 A.Zverev vs Khachanov 🇷🇺 (H2H: 2-1) (Hard H2H: 1-1)

Prediction: Khachanov in 3

— NB 6:30pm Montreal, 11:30pm UK —

🇪🇸 Nadal vs Fognini 🇮🇹 (H2H: 11-4) (Hard H2H: 5-1)

Prediction: Nadal in 3

🇪🇸 Bautista Agut vs Monfils 🇫🇷 (H2H: 1-3) (Hard H2H: 1-3)

Prediction: Bautista Agut in 3

EXTRAS 🔍📊🎤

— Federer, Nadal and Melzer join the Player Council. That is not news that too many were expecting to hear.

The three players (Nadal, Djokovic & Federer) have historically *not* been aligned with regard to politics in this sport. Nadal and Federer famously disagreed, while occupying the president and vice president roles, during their original stints on the Player Council. And since Djokovic has been president over the past year or so, both Federer and Nadal have been vocally opposed to the council’s actions/direction.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how this all shakes out in their first meeting as a group at the US Open. A lack of cohesion has been a major issue for the player council over the past year, with Roger Rasheed’s ousting the only decision which was voted through with a real majority (Chris Kermode’s Presidency termination and ATP Board elections, RE Weller Evans and Lappenti, have seen the council locked in indecision with no clear majority each time). Either Fedal have discussed direction with Djokovic prior to this announcement, and the three of them are about to tackle tennis’ issues head on, or we’re going to see some heads butting.

It feels like the ATP, and tournament representatives, have been able to rely on the default individuality of tennis players, and the resulting lack of ability for the player body to unite and act. Time will tell if this new formation of the council will be any different.

— When I first read the above I genuinely wasn’t sure whether it was Fedal fan fiction, or a real piece of news.

NEW BALLS PLEASE 👀

— Cilic nearly going full vicht salute. Never go full vicht (unless you want Lleyton Hewitt to magically appear in your house like Betelgeuse).

A whole thread of Paire vs Wawrinka doubles content:

— Paire with a *BOLD* haircut choice. Source

— Fognini looking at Nadal fans.

— Happiest mascot I’ve ever seen.

— You’ve probably got a limited amount of time to consume this abomination of a meme before the ATP takes it down for a bogus copyright claim, and banishes my twitter account to Alcatraz.

GAME, SET, MATCH 👋

— The Racquet is created, and written, by Matt.

— You can find me on Twitter here.

See you tomorrow for the Montreal Quarter-Finals!