Daniil Medvedev on Thursday was again drawn into a heated exchange with an umpire before crashing out of the Monte Carlo Masters in a 6-3, 7-5 defeat by Karen Khachanov in the round-of-16, while Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner advanced to the quarter-finals.
Fourth seed Medvedev, who had reached at least the quarter-finals in his past two appearances in Monte Carlo, never truly got going against fellow Russian Khachanov.
After a topsy-turvy start with four breaks in the first four games, Medvedev double-faulted to gift Khachanov the lead at 5-3, with the world No. 17 holding serve comfortably to clinch the opening set.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Medvedev shook off some of his early rustiness in the second and had set point when he was 5-4 up, but squandered that opportunity and was unable to break Khachanov’s serve.
Khachanov’s hold under pressure proved the final straw for Medvedev, who faded quickly and hurled his racket against the backboard after an erroneous call from a line judge.
“Open your freaking eyes,” Medvedev, who also argued with the chair umpire after his win over Gael Monfils on Wednesday, shouted at the umpire and supervisor, before being issued a point penalty.
Khachanov reached the last eight in Monte Carlo for the first time.
“Mentally, even though I’ve lost a few hard matches to him on hard courts, I know he doesn’t like to play on clay and that gives me some extra confidence,” Khachanov said in his on-court interview. “Sometimes I know Daniil can lose his mind. Sometimes he uses it as a tool, but it can get out of control sometimes. I tried not to look at him or focus on him, and just serve it out.”
World No. 1 Djokovic looked in trouble early on, but rallied to win 7-5, 6-3 against Lorenzo Musetti, the player who knocked the Serb out at this stage in last year’s tournament.
The Italian broke in the opening game before Djokovic bounced back with two breaks to take the first set. The pair traded breaks twice in the second set, but Djokovic broke a third time to make it 5-3 and held serve to advance.
“He was the better player for those first seven games, played some great tennis, but this is clay and obviously things can turn around very quickly, and a break of serve is not as big advantage on this surface compared to the other surfaces,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic, twice Monte Carlo champion, has not advanced beyond the quarter-finals since he won in 2015 and was to face 11th seed Alex de Minaur, who beat Alexei Popyrin 6-3, 6-4 in an all-Australian clash.
Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner had little trouble defeating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4, 6-2, despite the German breaking serve in the opening set.
“I broke him quite early and then he broke me back,” Sinner said. “I knew it was going to be really tough, but I guess I returned really well, especially on second serves. I can be very happy.”
Sinner was to face seventh seed Holger Rune in a rematch of last-year’s semi-final, which was won by the Dane.
Rune finished his rain-delayed clash against Sumit Nagal with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win, before returning to court to see off Grigor Dimitrov 7-6 (11/9), 3-6, 7-6 (7/2) in a three-and-a-half-hour thriller.
“It was a great match. It was tough physically. I had a match earlier today which was two sets, so I played five sets today, actually, which is pretty brutal,” Rune said.
Twice Monte Carlo champion Stefanos Tsitsipas defied a spirited comeback from fifth seed Alexander Zverev to win 7-5, 7-6 (7/3).
The Greek 12th seed took a 5-0 lead in the second set before the German made an impressive recovery.
Tsitsipas, the winner in 2021 and 2022, held his nerve in the tiebreak to reach the quarter-finals where he was to meet Khachanov.
Norwegian eighth seed Casper Ruud also reached the last eight after beating Hubert Hurkacz 6-4, 6-2 and was to face 14th seed Ugo Humbert.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A wine merchant who blind tasted a different glass of wine at each mile of the London Marathon on Sunday has said he feels “honored” his challenge went viral on social media, as he surpassed his fundraising target. Tom Gilbey, nicknamed “the wine guy,” sampled 25 glasses of wine during the race, stopping to guess the drink’s grape variety, country of origin and vintage at each mile. A video he posted on TikTok has amassed more than 3.2 million views. He had his first sip at about 9:30am, shortly after the race began. Gilbey said he aimed to raise £2,000 (US$2,487) for Sobell