Borna Coric has shown throughout this week that he didn’t beat Rafa Nadal by chance in the second round of Cincinnatialthough it is true that the Balearic had not played for more than a month. The Croatian, who had previously dismounted Musetti, got rid of Roberto Bautista and Auger-Aliassime, before dominating without problems (6-3 and 6-4 in 91 minutes) this Saturday in the semifinals over Cameron Norrie, who had been able to the day before with Carlos Alcaraz. Coric has a high level, who is the tennis player who reaches the final of the tournament with a lower position in the ATP table (152nd, although he plays with a ranking protected by injuries that separated him from the circuit between 2020 and 2021) since the classification system was established in 1973; and the second worst in that sense who achieves it in any Masters 1,000, after Andrey Pavel, who was 191st when he arrived at Paris-Bercy. His rival will be very classy: Stefanos Tsitsipas, who was able to beat the world number, Daniil Medvedev.
Thanks to his fantastic week, Coric is now virtually in the top-100. He is the 48th and it would be the 29th if he lifts the trophy. So far, he has risen a whopping 104 positions. He is the only one of the semifinalists who has not yet been champion of an event of this category, although he had his chance in Shanghai 2018, but Djokovic stopped him. At 25, he has a long career ahead of him and seems to have regained his tone. that put him on the verge of the top ten four seasons ago, when he was 12th.
He had already beaten Norrie once, in Rome 2019, curiously after beating Auger-Aliassime, as happened this time. The British had made a great physical effort to beat Alcaraz and perhaps he paid for it against a Coric who had not suffered as much to advance and barely added 15 unforced errors. Little did he care about the change of time and track caused by a rainy afternoon. The game was going to be played around 6:00 p.m. ET at the Central and was finally played from 8:00 p.m. in the Grand Stand. With three breaks he dispatched Cameron, who was looking for his second Masters 1,000 final, after winning Indian Wells in 2021. The hours of rehabilitation, the work and the effort of years, have borne good fruit for Coric, as highlighted by the ATP. That is why he celebrated this success with such rage. Now, he is one step away from finishing off a perfect job.
Tsitsipas reaches his sixth Masters 1.00 final
Stefanos Tsitsipas had the face to face frankly against Daniil Medvedev, a 7-2 that started with five consecutive victories of the Russian and that has been leveling slightly since the 2019 ATP Finalsthe first time that the Greek prevailed. This Saturday he did it for the third time in Cincinnati, to also enter his sixth Masters 1,000 finalin search of a third title, first on hard court, after the two he won on the dirt of Monte Carlo in 2021 and 2022. Tsitsipas prevailed 7-6 (6), 3-6 and 6-3 at 2h23 in a meeting that should have started at 3:00 p.m. local time and started around 8:30 p.m. due to the weather.
It is the second time Stefanos has beaten a world number one. He was already able to beat Djokovic when he was the leader of the ranking in Shanghai 2019. He played the semifinals of the tournament for the third time in a row and was finally able to overcome them. And he might have done it more comfortably if he hadn’t disengaged badly in the second set, when he conceded 5-0. Medvedev got tangled up afterwards and showed that he was not as good as that scoreboard reflected. The Hellenic game grew and the Muscovite lost focus on a serve because of some fireworks that Norrie and Alcaraz had already suffered in their duel the day before. He lost it and with it, the game ended. At least he made the best point of the game and leaves Cincinnati without having lost a point, because he was defending the semifinals in 2021.
