US OPEN, New York

The number one seed and number one ranked player, Rafael Nadal, will face an opponent that has beaten him on his favorite surface; however, they have never played each other on hard court. They have met ten times on clay and Nadal has the 7:3 advantage, but Dominic Thiem seems to have found his hard court game. I think Nadal will have to work very hard to get by the Austrian even on this surface. Thiem is the 4.0 version of Nikoloz Basilashvili, and he can hit his serve and groundstrokes with pace all day long.

Juan Martin Del Potro will face off against the sole remaining American in the men’s singles draw, John Isner. These two have played eleven times before and Del Potro leads 7:4. This is Isner’s major and he’s is hoping that he will have home court advantage; however,  Del Potro is at a career high at number three, and he is playing with the confidence of a player ranked in the top four.

Former US Open 2014 finalists will face off again, only this time in the quarterfinals. Marin Cilic hopes he will be able to duplicate that result; however, Kei Nishikori is playing some of his best tennis of the season. Three times they have played each other at the Open and Cilic has the 2:1 advantage; yet, Nishikori has the overall 8:6 lead and he will try to capitalize on the fact that Cilic may be exhausted from his five set battle a few days ago.

(The last quarterfinal match will pit two of the former top four, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. They are well known adversaries having played forty-six times before. The slight advantage goes to Djokovic 24:22, with the Serbian winning the last three encounters; thus, expect Federer to want some revenge this time around) That was how convinced I was that it would be Federer vs. Djokovic until I woke up this morning and saw the shocking score. Credit Millman for staying mentally tough considering his opponent. He got his first top ten victory and now is into the quarterfinals of a major for the first time in his career. Yet, what was even more disturbing was how poorly Federer played and even if he had gotten by John Millman, Djokovic would have beaten him easily.

Now the last quarterfinal will pit Millman against Djokovic and somehow I don’t see the Australian getting by Djokovic, who recently crushed him in straight sets; yet, given his recent victory his confidence may be through the roof and tennis is not played on paper.

SOURCE OF IMAGES: serveandrally