In a day that almost promised to be a fun one definitely delivered with surprising upsets and matches that went the distance.
Thursday began with American favorite and 5th seed Frances Tiafoe against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka, what looked like early-on smooth sailing Tiafoe flew to a quick one set lead with little issues but at the beginning of the second set he struggled with serve early on which gave Nishioka a foot in the door and just enough hope to steal a break to lead 3-1, but Tiafoe wasn’t ready to back down from the second set, Big Foe got the immediate break back and held serve to get back to 3-3 and with a couple more holds of serve Nishioka led the set 5-4 and got the pivotal second break of the set to take the match into a decider. Gaining momentum and confidence from leveling the match at a set all, Nishioka held off Tiafoe in the deciding set to take the match 3-6 6-4 6-3 and end the Americans hope for a home states tournament.
With the second match of the day, we had an even more shocking result with another top American and 4th seed Ben Shelton facing off against Spain’s Jaume Munar. Munar started off hot with a quick 6-2 set against the young American going 2/2 on break points and serving all around really well throughout the match with 75% first serves in as well as winning 83% along the way. Although Shelton fought back in the second set to bring it to a tiebreak but just couldn’t hold his own on this one and ended up losing it 6-2 7-6 (7-3).
Some other matches today included some routine wins with 2nd seed Casper Ruud taking on American Michael Mmoh in a comprehensive 6-1 6-4 victory, with this victory Ruud is into his first quarter-final of the season on arguably his least favorite surface being indoor hardcourt. Following in Casper steps Czech star Tomas Machac put up a very convincing score line against Australian Rinky Hijikata, with a score of 6-4 7-6 (7-0) Machac served really well with a first serve percentage of 63% in and winning 74% on his first serve along with 10 aces and just 2 double faults. Although it was a straight set win Hijikata kept it close throughout with going 2/2 on break points but Machac was just too clutch in the tight moments even with an iffy 3/8 on break points.
Tomas Machac will be going against Canadian Denis Shapovalov who defeated world #4 and top seed Taylor Fritz tonight in a very topsy-tervy 3 set match. With Fritz flying through the first set 6-2 it looked like it was a wash from there, but with tennis every point counts and Shapo kept cool and held his head high after dropping the first set. With only one break of the match in Shapo’s favor it came at the right time for the second set and was able to steal it 6-3, although his serving stats weren’t the best, they could be Denis was able to blast down 15 aces along with a worrisome 7 double faults. Going into the decider the two were neck and neck saving break points along the way, the match ended with a tiebreak in favor of Shapovalov who’s deciding set tiebreak record has been abysmal for the past few years with his last win being against Matteo Berrettini in a 2019 Davis Cup tie, aside from that win he has been 0-12 since that tie.
One of the final matches of the day went the way of Tommy Paul coming through a tight 3-setter against young American Ethan Quinn who just cracked the top 150 in the ATP live rankings at the age of 20. Being so young it was fun to see how Quinn could get into Paul’s game and disrupt the momentum Paul had when being up and cruising with a the score 6-4 5-3, Quinn was able to win 4 games in a row to steal the second set from Tommy’s hands. With Paul being stolen from he had to get back to basics and lock it in to advance to the quarter-finals again. As defending champion, Tommy will look to keep going to defend his title against childhood friend and big serving Reilly Opelka in the quarter-finals on Friday night.
