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Alexander Zverev, Andy Murray, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tennis News, Tennis Players, Tennis Tournaments

Semi-finals set in Madrid, Murray and Wozniacki advance


Day three of the virtual Madrid Open saw the completion of the quarter-final matches, with many big names in action, including Andy Murray, Caroline Wozniacki, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Bianca Andreescu.

Group stage matches were played as short sets, with players just needing to reach three games, with a two-game cushion, to win, and a tie-breaker as a decider at 3-3. This led to some very short encounters so with a much thinner schedule on Wednesday players battled it out in full sets to earn their places in the semi-finals. There were, however, still some very one-sided match-ups.

In the men’s draw, the closest set finished 6-3, when Diego Schwartzman triumphed over Fabio Fognini. A notch below that, Tsitsipas won 6-2 against David Ferrer, and Murray went one better in ousting Alexander Zverev 6-1. Tsitsipas and Murray both have unbeaten records heading into the next round but the most dominant performance of the day came from David Goffin who served up a bagel for Benoit Paire. In an interview afterwards, Paire said, “Before the tournament my favourite to win was Tsitsipas or Murray, but now Goffin is my favourite to win, by far.”

The semi-finals for the ATP are:

Tsitsipas v Goffin; Murray v Schwartzman

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Of the remaining women, the day’s stand out performer was Caroline Wozniacki who, unlike fellow retiree Ferrer, showed no signs of rust, dispatching Johanna Konta with ease, and progressing to the final day with a commanding 6-0 victory. The WTA draw did, however, provide more closely fought matches on the whole. Donna Vekic, who had been plagued by technical issues for many of her earlier matches, fell in a tie-breaker to Fiona Ferro, and Sorana Cirstea also came through her match 7-6, beating the reigning US Open champion, Bianca Andreescu. Cirstea won one of the most exciting matches in the group stages too, when she came from a break down to win against Elina Svitolina 4-2. In the remaining quarter-final, Kiki Bertens, the winner in Madrid last year, defeated Belinda Bencic 6-4.

The semi-finals for the WTA are:

Ferro v Cirstea; Wozniacki v Bertens

Thursday is the fourth and final day of the tournament with the semi-finals and finals taking place. Action will commence at 3pm local time.

 


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.