Djokovic beats Goffin to reach Cincinnati quarters

August 21, 2015 04:12 pm | Updated March 29, 2016 04:37 pm IST - Cincinnati

Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic found himself against the ropes against Belgium’s David Goffin but rallied in time to pull off a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 victory to reach the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Masters here.

The 13th—seeded Goffin on Thursday afternoon won nine of 11 games to win the second set and take a 3-0 lead with two service breaks in the decider. But top seed Djokovic was able to get his game back on track just in time and take advantage of the 24-year-old Belgian’s inexperience to reel off the final six games of the one-hour, 46-minute contest, Efe reported.

The 28-year-old world No.1, a four-time finalist here, the only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event that has eluded him thus far in his career, will next take on fifth-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in one of Friday’s quarterfinal matches.

Wawrinka squeaked past Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 7-6(5) on Thursday in a match that was devoid of service breaks.

Sixth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych, who routed Spain’s Tommy Robredo 6-0, 6-1, and Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov, a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 winner over Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz, will also square off on Friday.

In women’s action Thursday, top-seeded American Serena Williams cruised into the quarterfinals with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Italian Karin Knapp.

Bopanna-Mergea enter quarters

Indo0Romanian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea earned a hard fought win in three sets to enter the men’s doubles quarterfinals.

The fifth seeds took an hour and 29 minutes to move past French combine of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut 1-6, 7-6(5), 13-11 on Thursday. They will next take on Croatian-Brazilian second seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo on Friday for a place in the semifinals.

Bopanna and Mergea had a disastrous start as they were broken twice in the first set. They took time to get into rhythm as Herbert and Mahut won six of the seven games played in the set.

However, the seeded pair came back strongly to win a breakpoint in the second set. Herbert and Mahut also won a breakpoint to push the set into the tie-breaker where the fifth seeds proved a tad bit better to clinch it 7-5.

It turned out to be an extremely close contest in the super tie-break as neither pair earned a mini service break. However, just when it mattered, Bopanna and Mergea got the break and entered the last eight stage.

Leander Paes and his Swiss partner Stan Wawrinka will take on Spanish-Belarusian pair of Feliciano Lopez and Max Mirnyi in the quarterfinals on Friday. Indo-Swiss women’s doubles top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis will also play their quarters against wild card American pair of Christina Mchale and CoCo Vandeweghe.

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