{"id":4399,"date":"2017-09-02T10:27:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T14:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=4399"},"modified":"2017-09-02T10:27:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T14:27:51","slug":"paolo-lorenzi-reaches-maiden-grand-slam-second-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/09\/02\/paolo-lorenzi-reaches-maiden-grand-slam-second-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Paolo Lorenzi reaches his maiden Grand Slam second week at the US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2017 US Open<\/strong>, on the ATP side, suffered from multiple top level withdrawals. First of all, Novak\u00a0<\/strong>Djokovic, <\/strong>followed by Stan\u00a0<\/strong>Wawrinka,<\/strong> and Kei<\/strong>\u00a0Nishikori<\/strong>. That meant that only seven Top 10 players were still supposed to compete at the last Grand Slam of the season. As if this wasn\u2019t enough, #2 seed Andy Murray<\/strong> withdrew, too, and in the end the number of Top 10 players officially entering the draw was six. Halfway through the third round, the number eventually lowered to three! And crazily enough, they are all in the top half of the draw \u2013 Roger Federer<\/strong>, Rafa Nadal<\/strong> and Dominic Thiem<\/strong>. A surprising benefactor of this is Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The bottom half indeed suffered from the loss of Marin Cilic<\/strong>, Grigor Dimitrov<\/strong> and Alexander Zverev<\/strong>. Hence, 2017 Us Open will greet a first time Slam finalist, and at least one maiden Grand Slam semifinalist, as Sam Querrey<\/strong> is the only player who has contesed one before \u2013 just a couple of months ago at Wimbledon<\/strong>. Among those remaining alive the tournament, I already dealt with Canadian Next Gen star\u00a0Denis Shapovalov<\/strong><\/a>. Today, it\u2019s worth talking about another unexpected player who reached the first fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time of his entire career, at the age of 36, with a ranking of #40: Paolo Lorenzi.<\/p>\n

Lorenzi\u2019s result is astonishing, mainly because of his previous performances at Grand Slams. He won his first main draw match just three years ago, at the 2014 US Open, in what was his fourteenth \u2013 yes, you read it correctly! \u2013 main draw appearance. After that, he managed to reach the second round in every other Grand Slam, twice at the Australian Open<\/strong>, and his best performance has to be found last year in New York, when he reached the third round.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>