Tennis - Madrid Masters Update

This week’s ATP Tennis action (the Madrid Masters) is now down to the quarter-final stage and the form players on the red dirt so far this season Nadal (seeded 4), Thiem (8), Goffin (9) and unseeded players this week Alexander Zverev, Cuevas and Coric are all still in with a chance of reaching Sunday’s final. From the top half of the draw Marrakech winner Coric became the first Lucky Loser to reach the quarter-finals in the tournament’s history yesterday when he continued his good record against top seed Murray (3-2 head-to-head) thrashing him in straight sets 6-3, 6-3.

Coric faces eighth seed Thiem today and they are meeting for the second time in as many months as Coric won at the Miami Masters in straight sets back in March. Cuevas faces Munich winner NextGen star Zverev for the first time today and the young German is favourite with the bookies to continue his hot streak and extend his unbeaten run to eight matches on the red dirt.

From the bottom half of the draw fourth seed Nadal, who has already won the Monte Carlo Masters and Barcelona, is now on a 12 match unbeaten streak and faces ninth seed Goffin today. Finally, defending champion and second seed Djokovic could faces a stern test today against sixth seed Nishikori. However, Djokovic leads the head-to-head on clay 4-0 and I expect that trend will continue today.