Borna Coric led three #NextGenATP players into the quarter-finals of the Winston-Salem Open Wednesday, in the process handing two-time champion John Isner his first defeat at the event. Coric, who on Monday slipped to fourth in the Emirates ATP Race To Milan behind Jared Donaldson, will move back ahead of the American after reaching his first quarter-final since his strong run to the last eight at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid, where he took out then-World No. 1 Andy Murray.
The 20-year-old Croatian claimed three breaks of serve against 6’ 10” Isner, who also dropped serve three times in his opening win Tuesday over Russian Andrey Kuznetsov. World No. 62 Coric will next meet German Jan-Lennard Struff, who reached his first quarter-final since Munich with a tough 6-3, 6-7(3), 7-6(3) win over Italian veteran Andreas Seppi.
Korean Hyeon Chung and American Taylor Fritz are the other #NextGenATP Finals contenders who will appear in Thursday's quarter-finals. Chung advanced when French veteran and former finalist Julien Benneteau retired early in the second set with an elbow injury. Currently eighth in the Emirates ATP Race to Milan, Chung will play Bosnia & Herzegovina's Damir Dzumhur after the 25-year-old beat Argentine veteran Horacio Zeballos 7-5, 6-3.
Fritz, who at 14th in the Race has much work to do to qualify for Milan, toughed out a 7-6(3), 7-6(5) win over Italian veteran Paolo Lorenzi. Fritz converted all three break chances he earned, but also dropped serve three times himself.
"I did a really good job taking advantage of the chances on his serve to break," Fritz said. "My service games were a little tougher than I wanted them to be. He made some adjustments and had we gone to a third set I felt I would have been in a lot of trouble."
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Fritz will now play top seed Roberto Bautista Agut, who claimed his 200th career match victory with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Marcos Baghdatis, repeating his win over the Cypriot in Winston-Salem last year during his run to the final. The Spaniard, who won 67 per cent of points on his second serve and saved four of five break points faced, is just two places behind his career-high Emirates ATP Ranking of 13.
"I'm very happy for the 200th win. There's a lot of hard work and practise behind it," Bautista Agut said. "I had the match under control with 6-3, 4-1 on serve. But every match has its difficulties. It was a good comeback to [eventually] close the match."
Sixth seed Steve Johnson is one win away from his second semi-final in Winston-Salem in three years after beating Argentine's Carlos Berlocq 7-6(1), 6-4. The American won 83 per cent of first-serve points and an impressive 79 percent of second-serve points and did not face a break point.
Johnson next plays young Briton Kyle Edmund, who cruised into the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.
"Any time you win matches it calms the nerves a bit," said Johnson, who has slipped from a career-high No. 21 in 2016 to No. 46 now. "The belief starts getting stronger and confidence is an important thing in tennis. I feel better with every day."