It was a long day at the Barcelona Open this Tuesday as a total of 14 matches were played. The two biggest names in action today were Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev, and both booked their place into the last 16: while Thiem did it relatively easily over Edmund, Zverev benefited from a trademark Almagro collapse to get over the line in what was a very tightly contested match from the beginning.
As far as surprises are concerned, Gasquet’s defeat against Sugita has to mentioned, even If the Frenchman is returning from injury. Sugita is into an improbably R16 after defeating the heavily favored Robredo and Gasquet in consecutive days. Ferrer’s defeat at the hands of Kevin Anderson could be considered surprising too, but not so much when you take into account his recent results. Even at a tournament where he historically does well, Ferrer simply can’t seem to get anything going these days. The only other seed to lose today was Mischa Zverev, against Daniel Evans, but that hardly qualifies as a surprise considering both players are known to struggle on clay. Bernard Tomic got a confidence boosting win over Dustin Brown on clay as well.
Tomorrow many of the top seeds will make their tournament debut, notably Murray against Tomic and Goffin against Basilashvili. The highlight of the day will however undoubtedly be the 9-time champion Rafael Nadal’s debut in the court just recently named after himself. The match itself is unlikely to be eventful given the massive disparity in level between Nadal and Dutra Silva, but it will be tennis history on display.
Other highlights tomorrow include Chung vs Kohlschreiber, Khachanov vs Cuevas and Rudd vs Ramos, a match between the recent Monte Carlo finalist and one of the most promising youngsters on the tour.
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