Andy Murray, world No.1 crashed out of the Madrid Open, losing to 59th ranked Croatian Borna Coric in straight sets. This loss meant that he would have just one more chance at Rome to win back his form before the French Open. Murray has had a forgettable Clay Court season so far with surprise defeats against Dominic Thiem and Albert Ramos-Vinolas in previous tournaments. This is the top seed’s fifth loss of the year with his only title coming in Dubai at the beginning of 2017.
Coric can be called a giant slayer, he has defeated Murray and Nadal in the past. He is lucky to be playing in the main draw in Madrid, though, coming in on a loser’s card having lost his qualifier. Today, however, he took full advantage of Murray’s lackluster performance , cashing in on his 55 unforced errors to make the scoreline read 6-3 6-3. At a time the 2-time Madrid champion is looking to rediscover the spark, unforced errors are not helping in the least. Coric was the first to break at 2-2. However Murray immediately broke back to level at 3-3 . The Croatian then reeled off 5 games in a row to take the first set 6-3 on Murray’s serve and go up 2-0 in the second. On the back of Murray’s below par performance, the 20 year old broke again at 4-3 and served out the match to complete the biggest upset of the day.
pclass="MsoNormal">Earlier, defending champion and second seed Novak Djokovic registered a straight set win over Spaniard Feliciano Lopez. He was right on top of his service games saving the only break point he faced. He broke Lopez once in each set to complete a copybook 6-4 7-5 victory. The world No. 2 is up against Kei Nishikori in the quarters who , playing his first tournament since March this year, scripted a 6-4 6-3 win over another Spaniard David Ferrer. This will be a very important match for the out of form Djokovic and a win over the 6<sup>th</sup> seeded Japanese player will go a long way in boosting his sagging confidence after a string of shocking losses this year. Djokovic coming up with a much more professional display as compared to his first match where he had huffed and puffed his way to a three set victory is certainly a good news for his fans.</p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">R"fael Nadal , however , continues to remain undefeated on clay this season. The former world No.1’s dream run on clay continued with a 6-3 6-1 win over Nick Kyrgios. In a much talked about match, Kyrgios was expected to make a few inroads into the Spaniard’s game having defeated him once earlier. What panned out was a vintage Nadal display, powerful and ruthless, with Kyrgis barely avoiding his very first bagel in the second set. It was a much improved performance by Nadal , from the three set struggle against Fabio Fognini in his previous match. Next he takes on David Goffin in the quarter finals who secured a straight set victory over Milos Raonic to reach the next round. In other 3rd round matches German prodigy Alexander Zverev upset Tomas Berdych in straight sets Dominic Thiem beat Grigor Dimitrov to set up a quarter final match with giant-slayer Borna Coric.
