Croatian Borna Coric won his 5th tour-level match this year defeating Spain’s Rafael Nadal in Cincinnati round two. He won the match 7-6(9), 4-6, 6-3 in 2 hours and 52 minutes. Coric who had shoulder surgery and came back to tour in march secured his best win of the year.
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Rafael Nadal withdrew from the Wimbledon semi-final due to an abdomen injury. He played a good return match with plenty of good moments. He was in control throughout most of the first set. Nadal made his first unforced in the seventh game.
Coric came back nicely after a rain break which occurred at Nadal leading 5-4 in the first set.
Coric was enjoying plenty of longer rallies. Both Nadal and he saved 2 set points each in the first set. The long tiebreak in the first set ended with Coric winning it 11-9.
Nadal quickly established control in the second set. He capitalized on the one break point he got to get back in the match by winning the set 6-4.
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But it was Coric ultimately who came on top during the deciding 3rd set. He broke Nadal midway through the set to establish a good 4-2 lead.
He then quickly held at love in his serve. Coric faced no problems closing the match on his serve later after winning a grueling rally.
Reactions from Borna Coric after his win and other stats
“It has been very, very special,” Coric said of his win on center court. “I was out for the last two years and I didn’t play on the big stage in front of the crowd and everybody, I was honestly just looking forward to playing this match as I haven’t had that in the last two years. Now that I won, it’s kind of crazy.”
Stat of the match –Â
Borna Coric is only the second active player on tour to have a winning H2H record against Nadal having played at least 5 matches and he leads Nadal 3-2. The only other player to have positive H2H against Nadal is Novak Djokovic. He leads Nadal 30-29.
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Borna Coric will now face another Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut who defeated Marcos Giron 6-3, 6-3 earlier. Coric leads H2H 5-4.
“It’s going to be a very interesting match,” said Coric. “I need to be very aggressive for sure, especially because I was playing for a very long time today and I also finished very late. So I’m going to be even more aggressive probably.”
Rafael Nadal will now turn his focus to US Open which starts on 29th August. He lost his chance to get back to the world’s number one ranking after his loss. However, he will have another chance to surpass Medvedev and Zverev at US Open.
