By Chris Oddo | Wednesday June 20, 2018
Seeds were toppled on Day 3 of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany, as No.3-seeded Dominic Thiem and No.7-seeded Kei Nishikori both met their maker on the grass.
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World No.52 Yuichi Sugita took Thiem to task on Wednesday by putting forth a near perfect performance against the hard-hitting Austrian. Sugita earned his career-best victory and second Top-10 win of the season with a 6-2, 7-5 triumph, and will move on to the quarterfinals to face American Denis Kudla.
The fleet-footed Sugita jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Thiem and had a point for 5-0 before the Austrian started to rein in his game a bit. Thiem stayed close with Sugita in the second set but the 29-year-old claimed a break for 6-5 and converted his fourth match point for to close the victory in one hour and 28 minutes.
Sugita won 33 of 41 first-serve points and saved the only break point he faced on Wednesday. He also won 23 of 37 second-serve return points against Thiem and earned 13 break points, converting three.
“Unbelievable,” said an elated Sugita. “This is for sure the best match of my career.”
Kudla also had one of his better days. The 25-year-old American eased past up-and-coming Stefanos Tsitsipas with an extremely clean 6-3, 6-4 victory. Kudla saved all four break points he faced and broke the Greek once per set to reach his third career ATP quarterfinal on grass.
The American qualifier has won all eight sets he has played at Halle.
In other action on Day 3 at the Gerry Weber Open, Russia’s Karen Khachanov hammered Japan’s Kei Nishikori, 6-2, 6-2 in 77 minutes.
Nishikori never found his game and was routinely dispatched by the hard-hitting Russian, who improved to 7-2 lifetime on grass at the ATP-level with his only losses coming to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Khachanov earned 11 break points and converted twice in each set to pull away from the No.7 seed. He now owns a 2-1 lifetime record over Nishikori and will bid for back-to-back semifinals at Halle when he faces Roberto Bautista Agut on the quarterfinals.
The Spaniard earned a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Dutchman Robin Haase.