Day 3 was dominated by the exit of men’s defending champ Nadal in straight sets to the unfancied but evidently exciting player in his own right; Mackenzie McDonald. The suspected hip complaint for the Spaniard looks significant, but even before Nadal pulled up and stopped running, it was clear things weren’t 100%. So too did the young American had answers most of the time to the signature power of the number one seed. A fine fine performance, but this will hurt Nadal for a little while.
The other big names to exit were perhaps half expected as Emma Raducanu fell to Coco Gauff 6-3, 7-6, the match decided really in that limp first set where the Brit’s serve was all too attackable. Petra Kvitova, Bianca Andreescu and Sloane Stephens all lost today too.
There were fine, battling wins for Sakkari, Collins, Auger-Aliasime, Ostapenko and 10th seed Hurkacz, but the other contenders were hardly troubled; Swiatek, Pegula, Tsitsipas, Keys, Sinner, Medvedev, Krejcikova, Azarenka, Kokkinakis, Tiafoe and Rybakina all lost only a handful of games en route to R3.
Day 4 Matches to Catch
Fernandez vs Garcia [QUALITY]
Murray vs Kokkinakis [THEATRE]
Davis vs Mertens [QUALITY]
Mannarino vs de Minaur [FIREWORKS]
Cressy vs Rune [MIX OF STYLES]
All Things Tennis 