The brilliant match of the Romanian Simona Halep in the round of 16 against the American Coco Gauff and the victories in the first round of the men’s team of the Spanish Alejandro Davidovich, the Argentine Diego Schwartzman and a former world number one like the British Andy Murray were what highlight of the day this Monday at the tennis tournament in Madrid.
The program suffered an interruption in the early afternoon, when the rain forced the matches to be stopped and the roof of the three main courts to be unfolded, on the day – a holiday in Madrid – with the best public attendance since the competition began last Thursday.
Without conceding a single scoring game, the two rivals, 30-year-old Halep, 18 Gauff, maintained sensational exchanges, even in quality, until the most experienced imposed her tennis.
It was the Romanian’s 30th victory in Madrid. One more would match her figures in the Spanish capital with those she has at Roland Garros and the Australian Open, her best tournaments.
Her rival in the quarterfinals will be the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, on the top favorite role to win the tournament as she is the best seed left in the table, the eighth.
She vindicated that condition on the court with a victory against the Swiss Belinda Bencic by 6-2, 3-6 and 6-2.
The Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, who entered the main draw through the access door of the previous phase, also qualified for the quarterfinals by defeating another player from the qualifying round, the Czech Marie Bouzkova, 6-7 (1), 6-0 and 7-5. Her next opponent will be American Amanda Anisimova, who caused yet another drop in the seeded ratio: she defeated fifteenth-seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka 6-1 6-4.
In the men’s draw, still in the first round, the British Andy Murray, this time invited to the tournament, and the Austrian Dominic Thiem, who plays with a protected ranking, settled a duel between two recent tennis figures that resulted in victory for the former by 6-3 and 6-4.
Murray and Thiem, who were number one and three in the world, now occupy positions 78 and 91 respectively and try to overcome injuries of different degrees, but which have kept them away from the last rounds of the tournaments.
Thiem, in fact, is still looking for his first victory of this year. The Argentinian Diego Schwartzman, thirteenth favorite, agreed to the second round with a more expensive victory than expected against the Frenchman Benoit Paire, from the previous phase, by 6-2, 6-7 (5) and 6-1. The player with the most wins on clay so far this season thus extended his account to sixteen.
After the scare of the second set, in the third Paire could not keep up with him and Schwartzman took a step forward in the draw. His rival in the second round in Madrid will be Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, winner of American Maxime Cressy 6-2, 7-6 (4).
Alejandro Davidovich was the only Spaniard to get past the first round on Monday, defeating South African Lloyd Harris 7-5, 6-3. He thus equaled his best result so far in the Madrid tournament. In his goal of going for more, the finalist of the last Monte Carlo will now face the Norwegian Casper Ruud, fifth seed.
The Frenchman Gael Monfils beat the Valencian Carlos Gimeno 6-3 and 6-0, in 55 minutes, and will be the first rival of the world number one, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, in his premiere at the Caja Mágica. Monfils, player number 21 in the world, with 18 years of professional career behind him, was too demanding an obstacle for Gimeno, 369 in the ranking and debutant in the main draw of an ATP tournament, invited by the organizers.
The Australian Alex de Miñaur eliminated the Spanish Pedro Martínez 7-6 (2), 1-6 and 6-3. The first meeting between the two players, 22 and 44 in the world, went to three sets after the player from Alzira had a forceful reaction in the second set, which he could not extend into the third.
De Miñaur’s next rival will be the Italian Jannik Sinner, seeded tenth, who saved three match points against the American Tommy Paul before prevailing 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4) and 6-3. The Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili defeated the Italian Fabio Fognini 7-5 and 6-4 and thus met in the second round, this Tuesday, with the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz. In other first-round matches, Serbian Dusan Lajovic beat Croatian Borna Coric 6-3, 4-6, 6-4; Italian Lorenzo Musetti beat Belarusian Ilya Ivashka 2-6, 6-3, 7-5; the Belgian David Goffin to the Russian Aslan Karatsev by 6-2 and 7-5; and the British Cameron Norrie to the South Korean Soonwoo Kwon by 7-5 and 7-5.
