Hurkacz advances to National Bank Open quarters

MONTREAL — Hubert Hurkacz of Poland didn’t play his first match at the National Bank Open until Saturday afternoon. Now, after winning both ends of his tennis doubleheader, he is into the quarterfinals.

Hurkacz had a first-round bye as the No. 4 seed. And with his second-round match rained out Thursday night, and again on Friday, he didn’t take the court against Australian qualifier Thanasi Kokkinakis until Saturday. And he needed a third-set tiebreaker to get through.

Late Saturday afternoon, he returned to play his third-round match against France’s Arthur Rinderknech.

The two persevered through a pair of rain delays. And by 9:30 p.m. — some 14 hours after he left the hotel for Stade IGA — Hurkacz was through with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

After having surgery to repair a meniscus tear suffered at Wimbledon in early July, Hurkacz had to miss the Olympics. This is his first tournament back.

So after the second win, he laughed at the strangeness of it all.

“With what we went through with the knee — we didn’t even know if I would be playing again this year. Having surgery just three weeks ago, and now playing two matches in a day, it’s really good,” Hurkacz said.

“I was just trying to get the feel for how I’m going to perform, first match, first set. It’s actually not that bad. I’m a little tired now, but I haven’t spent much time on the court recently."

As Hurkacz was wrapping up his third-round match, the first quarterfinal of the tournament featured world No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy against No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev of Russia.

Sinner, too, has played little tennis lately. He missed the Olympics because of tonsillitis.

And on Saturday against Rublev, he looked to be struggling with a leg issue, doubling over a number of times.

In the end, Rublev pulled out a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 win against a somewhat diminished No. 1 that puts him into the National Bank Open semifinals for the first time in his career.

More than that, it’s the first time Rublev has even won more than one match in any of his five previous appearances in Montreal and Toronto.

Matteo Arnaldi of Italy, playing past midnight in Montreal, defeated Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-4, 7-5 in a two-hour match to punch his ticket into the semifinals and will now face Rublev.

The last gasp of Hurricane Debby, which cut a swath through the Montreal area Thursday night and all through Friday, put the tournament behind schedule.

As a result, with three second-round matches and eight third-round matches to get through earlier on Saturday and the tournament’s entire schedule rejigged, only two of the four singles quarterfinal matches were played — both during Saturday’s night session.

No. 2 seed Alexander Zverev of Germany and unseeded American Sebastian Korda will play their quarterfinal Sunday afternoon, as will Hurkacz and Alexei Popyrin of Australia.

And the winners of those two matches will have to turn it around quickly and meet in the semifinals later that day.

So that will be two doubleheaders in two days for Hurkacz and his surgically-repaired knee.

Meanwhile, the winners on Thursday night will only have their semifinal to play, ahead of Monday night’s singles final.

Korda, who posted an impressive 6-4, 7-6 (4) upset over No. 9 seed Taylor Fritz in the carried-over second-round match earlier Saturday, didn’t have to play a second match after No. 6 seed Casper Ruud of Norway withdrew due to an unspecified illness.

Meanwhile, Zverev defeated Holger Rune of Denmark 6-3, 7-6 (5) in their third-round match Saturday to make the date with Korda.

The German was pleased to come out with the win over Rune, the No. 13 seed, despite gusty conditions he said made it a struggle for both.

“It was not the best tennis both of us ever played. But again, with these kind of conditions it's not possible to do. So the most important thing was to get the win today,” Zverev said. “I was not a great player when it was windy, historically-wise, so it's definitely something I had to learn. I'm getting better at it, and I'm happy about that,” he added.

The two will be meeting for the first time ever on Sunday.

“(Korda) just won Washington, so he must be playing and feeling pretty well. He had a great win today against Taylor Fritz. So, yeah, I'm expecting a tough match,” Zverev said.

Meanwhile, Ruud isn’t the only one feeling poorly this week.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina retired in the third set of his third-round match against Arnaldi, having been within two points of a straight-sets win in the second-set tiebreak.

The official reason given was an upset stomach.

The Spaniard called for the physio after dropping the second set. But in the end, despite a medical timeout, there wasn’t much the physio and tournament physician could do for him. At 3-6, 7-6 (5), 3-0 for Arnaldi, Davidovich Fokina pulled the plug.

No. 7 seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria also was within two points of a straight-sets victory against the hard-hitting Popyrin, but ultimately fell 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2024.