Top Seeds Roll Into Rogers Cup Quarterfinals
It was business as usual for the top seeds at the Rogers Cup in Montreal on Thursday, as the number one, two and four seeds all rolled to victories to reach the quarterfinals of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.
World number one and top-seeded Serb Novak Djokovic was one of the first matches of the day and he made it a quick one, cruising past American Jack Sock 6-2, 6-1.
He lost just 10 points on his own serve and breaking Sock four times in six chances.
The match was on serve through the first five games, when Djokovic broke through with a break point to take a 4-2 lead in the opening set. From there, he won eight of the next nine games to notch the routine straight-set victory.
“I never played him before so it took me some time to really figure out what his patterns were of the serves, his game in general,” said Djokovic. “I did watch him many times before, but it’s different when you’re standing on the court trying to read the rotation, especially of his forehand because he’s got a very quick wrist, very quick motion, good forehand.
I think the turning point was the 3-2 game when I made a break. After that I just felt in control of the match.”
Djokovic will look to continue his dominating play against Latvian qualifier Ernests Gulbis, who continued his nice Montreal run with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over American Donald Young. He hit 27 winners in the match, securing a break point in each set to move past Young.
On court after Djokovic, second-seed Andy Murray had no problems with Gilles Muller, beating the Luxembourg native 6-3, 6-2.
Murray converted four of his six break points and needed just a little over an hour to defeat Muller.
“I thought I played a good match; returned well,” said Murray. “The first game was important. I served a few break points there. That kind of settled the nerves a little bit. I felt like I got a good read on his serve today…I was able to neutralize his biggest weapon, which is his serve. That was the key to the match.”
Murray will next play 10th seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who ousted Australian Bernard Tomic 7-6(7), 6-3.
Fourth-seed Kei Nishikori moved past 13th seeded Belgian David Goffin 6-4, 6-4 to set up a fantastic matchup with seventh-seed Rafael Nadal.
Nishikori notched a break point in each set to pick up the straight-set win. Nadal won in similar fashion in his third-round match, downing Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-3.
The other quarterfinal in Montreal will feature American John Isner taking on France’s Jeremy Chardy.
The 16th seed Isner broke at 6-5 in the opening set, and then broke at 4-3 in the second set, to defeat Australian Nick Kyrgios 7-5, 6-3 on Wednesday.
Isner won 79 percent of his service points and didn’t face a single break point.
Chardy battled back from a set down to beat big-serving Ivo Karlovic 4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4.
