Top 10 players dropping like flies at Cincinnati Masters
Holger Rune’s retirement in his match against Mackenzie McDonald brought to four the number of top 10 players to drop out of the Cincinnati Masters on Wednesday, and it would late rise to five.
On Monday, Rune entered the Top 5 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time, although he was unable to complete his maiden match as part of that illustrious group.
The 20-year-old was forced to give up after falling behind 4-6, 0-2 to Mackenzie McDonald on Wednesday at the Western & Southern Open. He received treatment for his lower back after the opening set from an ATP physiotherapist. After falling behind 4-3 in the opening set, he dropped five straight games before giving up.
After losing to Marcos Giron in the opening round last week in Toronto, Rune was looking for his first victory since advancing to the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Earlier, Max Purcell had ousted Casper Ruud and Russia’s Andrey Rublev lost to Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori while Jannik Sinner bowed out after a loss to Dusan Lajovic.
A fifth top ten player was then blown away as Frances Tiafoe lost to Stan Wawrinka in a classic clash.
The Swiss wild card defeated the 10th-seeded American 6-3, 6-4, dominating from the baseline.
“It’s been probably the best match of the season, I think the most complete match,” Wawrinka said after improving to 6-1 in his past seven outings. “I was feeling good, moving well, serving well, being aggressive, staying with him, fighting. I’m super happy and hopefully I can keep playing that well.”
Wawrinka will go on to face Purcell after the Aussie bested Ruud.
“I watched him play. He’s a really good player,” Wawrinka said of the World No. 70, who qualified and beat Felix Auger-Aliassime last week in Toronto. “He’s coming in this year, he’s winning a lot of matches. He played well last week. He’s beating top players, he beat Ruud today. It’s going to be a super interesting match.
“We never played each other, we never practised against each other. He’s a dangerous player so again I will have to play my best tennis to win.”
Lajovic was thrilled to defeat both a top ten player and the Toronto Masters champion.
“I obviously knew that it was going to be tough because whenever you are playing somebody who is in great form and has a lot of confidence, they play well in the important moments,” said Lajovic.
“You could see that, he was saving so many break points and everything when it was close, he was there.
“I knew I had been serving very well the past couple of days, so I thought if I continue to use my serve, both with the flat and the kick out wide, I could dominate the point after the serve. This is what I did most of the time in my service games… I was happy to finish in two sets because I know that going three sets against these kinds of players, it’s always going to be much tougher.”
Lajovic hopes to power his way up the rankings and make a real statement on tour.
“I’ve started changing a lot of things about me,” said Lajovic, when asked about the secret behind his recent success against the Tour’s top players. “This year I started doing a lot of mental health training, with a therapist and everything, and I started to change some things about myself, which is always hard and especially when you are over 30.
“We are very established as what we are [at that age], so changing takes great effort, but it started working. I started playing this season really well. I had unfortunate timing with chicken pox, which I got in Paris and was out until Wimbledon, and it took me a couple more weeks to get back on track. Now I’m finally back where I was before.”
Finland’s Ruusuvuori secured his fourth Top 10 win when he upset World No 8 Rublev in a three hour and 16-minute epic.
Ruusuvuori benefited from Rublev’s low 50% first-serve percentage as he avenged a four-set defeat to the Russian at this year’s Australian Open to improve his record against the seventh seed to 1-2.
READ MORE: Shock defeat for Jannik Sinner in Cincinnati could be a blessing in disguise
