World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and second-ranked Coco Gauff were sent crashing out of the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Open on Friday, while Carlos Alcaraz fought off a fierce challenge from Andrey Rublev to reach the semi-finals.
Top seed and defending champion Sabalenka had no answer for Elena Rybakina, falling to the 2022 Wimbledon champion 6-1, 6-4.
Reigning French Open champion Gauff had 16 double faults in a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 exit at the hands of seventh-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini.
Photo: EPA
Spain’s second-ranked Alcaraz had his difficulties, but he broke Rublev in the final game of a tense duel to emerge a 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 winner and would next face third-seeded Alexander Zverev, who brought fifth-seeded Toronto champion Ben Shelton’s run to an end with a 6-2, 6-2 victory.
Zverev earned a 4-1 lead in the second set as Shelton angrily tossed his racket on the changeover, and the 2021 champion polished off the win on a second match point. He now has 24 hours to try to get fit.
“I’m not feeling too great now, but I have a day to get fresh,” Zverev said. “I hope to be at 100 percent.”
“I’m not sure what happened. I felt very well, but at the end of the first set, it got progressively worse. But I’ll do all I can to give it a shot tomorrow,” he said.
Alcaraz was broken while serving for victory at 5-4 in the final set against 11th-ranked Rublev, but he found his focus and used his trademark grit to come through three games later.
He sealed the triumph as an emotional Rublev hit an eighth double-fault on match point.
“I maintained the positive thoughts even if I lost focus a bit in the second set,” said Alcaraz, whose five titles so far this year include the French Open, as well as Masters 1000 trophies in Monte Carlo and Rome.
Rybakina fired 11 aces en route to a fifth career victory over Sabalenka in 12 meetings.
She avenged a loss to the Belarusian in Berlin two months ago and booked a semi-final meeting with Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek — a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Anna Kalinskaya.
Rybakina was aided by 11 aces as she reached her first Cincinnati semi-final.
“I’m happy with the serve. It was the key today,” Rybakina said. “I served really well.”
“If she had been serving well, it would have been a totally different match,” she added.
Rybakina has won her last three matches against Swiatek, all played this season.
However, Swiatek was feeling confident after downing Kalinskaya in what she called “the best match I played here.”
“I’m happy that I’m progressing during the tournament,” Swiatek said.
Gauff, the 2023 Cincinnati champion, had looked well on her way after a quick first set against Paolini.
However, her mistakes caught up with her as she was broken eight times by the Italian, who overcame plenty of errors of her own as well as a twisted ankle suffered early in the third set.
“It was so tough at the start, I was running and trying to put the ball inside the court,” Paolini said. “I started to feel the ball better.”
“I fought for every point and stayed in the match,” added the Italian, who would face Veronika Kudermetova for a place in the final.
Kudermetova crushed Varvara Gracheva 6-1, 6-2.
Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday fought through a second-set slump to post a roller-coaster 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 victory over Damir Dzumhur in his opening match at the Cincinnati Open. The Spaniard, playing his first tournament since losing to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon final, raced through the first set, but completely lost his way in the second, dropping his serve twice against the 33-year-old Bosnian. Alcaraz regained his intensity and cut down his errors in the third set as a seventh ace took him to a match point that was converted when Dzumhur fired wide. “It was just a roller coaster,” said the second
Defending champions Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday led the way into the Cincinnati Open quarter-finals, with Carlos Alcaraz hot on their heels after a straight-sets victory of his own. Sinner shrugged off a mid-match weather delay lasting nearly three hours as he advanced 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) over Adrian Mannarino. Alcaraz, the second seed who has reached the final in his past six tournaments, hammered Italian lucky loser Luca Nardi 6-1, 6-4. After sweeping the opening set in 28 minutes, Alcaraz hit a speed bump, dropping his serve to trail 2-4. He promptly regained the break, then fought through a marathon ninth game
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NEXT ROUND: World No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka opened their title defenses with straight-sets wins, while Iga Swiatek and Taylor Fritz also advanced Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka got their title defenses off to smooth starts as they powered into the third round of the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Open on Saturday. The men’s and women’s top seeds, each ranked No. 1 in the world, were both competing for the first time since Wimbledon, where Sinner lifted the title and Sabalenka bowed out in the women’s semi-finals. Sinner crushed Colombian Daniel Elahi Galan 6-1, 6-1 in steamy afternoon weather, while Sabalenka beat 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova 7-5, 6-1 under the lights of the night session. Sabalenka needed 54 minutes and a service break in the final game