A former champion in Cincinnati was knocked out on Friday by a South American clay-courter while the tournament’s 2022 finalist survived into the second round.<\/p>\n
With 64 seeds in the men’s and women’s draw of the last major warm-up prior to the August 30th US Open only going into action from Saturday, interest focused on the fate of 2017 winner Grigor Dimitrov<\/a> and 2022 runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a>.<\/p>\n The popular Dimitrov was unable to hold onto a 4-1 lead in the third set against Argentine Sebastian Baez<\/a>, exiting in the first round 1-6, 6-3, 6-4<\/a> as he lost the last five games of the encounter.<\/p>\n The 35-year-old Dimitrov, his ranking down to 138 and playing on a wild card, was bidding for his first Cincinnati victory in five years.<\/p>\n Baez goes on to next play American Learner Tien<\/a>, a semi-finalist this week in Montreal.<\/p>\n Tsitsipas, the former world number three now standing 49th after a months-long slump in form, got past Valentin Royer<\/a> of France 7-6(4), 7-5<\/a> after struggling somewhat to close out the victory, which sent him into a match with second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Greek led a set and 5-2 but was broken as he served for victory, with Royer saving two match points on the way to 5-all.<\/p>\n Tsitsipas managed a late break two games later on his sixth match point to advance in two hours.<\/p>\n “I’m trying to come to the net as much as possible,” Tsitsipas said. “Whenever a ball is short I try to capture it inside the baseline. That’s where I shined the most.<\/p>\n “I felt confidence running through my veins. My offensive strategy helped me today, my composure was excellent.”<\/p>\n Tsitsipas admitted he was tested at the end as he tried to close out against Royer, and found himself stalling as he missed conversion on winning chances.<\/p>\n “It was nerve-wracking at the end with those match points I was not able to capture,” the Greek said. “It would have been easy to get tight.<\/p>\n “I had to remind myself to stay loose and play aggressive. If I was going to miss, at least I knew I had done the right thing.”<\/p>\n Tsitsipas, now several months into his coaching split with his father, has climbed to 49th after coming through qualifying at the Montreal Masters, where he lost in the second round.<\/p>\n Venus skid hits 14<\/p>\n Hubert Hurkacz<\/a>, a 2023 semi-finalist, advanced 6-2, 6-4<\/a> over qualifying lucky loser Sho Shimabukuro<\/a> while Italian Matteo Berrettini<\/a> defeated Thomas Droguet<\/a> 3-6, 6-2, 6-4<\/a>, playing only his second match since Wimbledon due to injury.<\/p>\n In the WTA draw, Colombian Emilia Arango<\/a> handed Venus Williams<\/a> a 14th straight loss dating to July of last year, defeating the fading seven-time Grand Slam champion who is currently ranked 615th in 66 minutes by 6-2, 6-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 46-year-old Williams was given a wild card entry at an event where she reached a semi-final a dozen years ago. She has played and lost 11 times this season while competing on organiser-free entries.<\/p>\n Czech Sara Bejlek<\/a> allowed compatriot and 2016 titleholder Karolina Pliskova<\/a> only two games in a first-round 6-0, 6-2<\/a> rout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former champion in Cincinnati was knocked out on Friday by a South American clay-courter while the tournament’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-815336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}