Rafael Nadal will aim to move one step closer to a historic 11th Roland Garros title when he clashes with Diego Schwartzman in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros on Wednesday. Meanwhile, on Court Suzanne Lenglen, Marin Cilic and Juan Martin del Potro face off, for the 13th time in their FexEx ATP Head2Head series. ATPWorldTour.com previews Wednesday's Roland Garros quarter-finals. [1] Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. [11] Diego Schwartzman (ARG) Nadal leads FedEx ATP Head2Head series 5-0 Nadal and Schwartzman will do battle for the second straight Grand Slam on Wednesday. At the Australian Open, earlier this year, Nadal overcame the 5'7" Argentine after three hours and 51 minutes to reach the quarter-finals. The two also met this year at the...
“&*#!!” curses Toni Nadal. Interrupt Toni when he is in task mode and the oaths fly out of his mouth like hot sparks from a blacksmith’s anvil. It is important to understand that Toni does not curse casually, nor as a form of insult, rather of exasperation. In this particular case, it is the frustration of being delayed and quite possibly missing a flight from Palma de Mallorca to Madrid. We are at the entrance of the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in Manacor, and the airport is nearly an hour’s drive away. I am but one of a handful of obstacles keeping Toni from getting to the airport on time. Standing aside, I watch Toni multi-task. He answers phone calls,...
In January, Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic clinched their first Grand Slam title as a team at the Australian Open, defeating Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the championship match. Just over four months later, the two teams met again in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros. Once again, Marach and Pavic emerged victorious. The ATP Doubles Race To London leaders recovered from a set down to beat the Colombian fifth seeds 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in two hours and 12 minutes. Marach and Pavic, bidding for their fifth tour-level title this season, won 73 per cent of first-serve points and converted two of nine break point opportunities. The Austrian-Croatian tandem are currently riding an eight-match win streak, having lifted the...
Alexander Zverev looked to the positives in spite of sustaining an injury during his first Grand Slam championship appearance at Roland Garros, which ended with a 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 loss to Dominic Thiem on Tuesday. “I won three five-set matches in a row [and] got to my first [major championship] quarter-final,” said Zverev. [It’s] all positive. [The] clay court season in general has been very positive. I lost three matches on the clay, all to great players. And I won two tournaments, made two [ATP World Tour] Masters 1000 finals. So it's all very positive. “I think if I get healthy again, I'll be ready to play good in the grass court season, as well... Grass is a surface that...
Dominic Thiem is inching closer to peak form in Paris, where he reached the semi-finals for the third consecutive year in five appearances at Roland Garros. The seventh-seeded Austrian served intelligently and controlled his single-handed backhand to draw errors from Alexander Zverev, who appeared to be hindered by a left leg complaint midway through the second set, in a 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 quarter-final victory on Philippe-Chatrier Court. Thiem, who has won 25 of his 30 clay-court matches this year, avenged his recent Mutua Madrid Open final loss to Zverev in one hour and 50 minutes. He now leads Zverev 5-2 in their FedEx Head2Head series, including a 4-1 mark in red dirt matches. “It’s never easy if your opponent obviously...
