Semifinals at Sardinia, St. Petersburg & Cologne Live: Zverev, Rublev, Raonic to Lead Today’s Action

Qualities and Traits Needed for a Good Tennis Coach
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The Sardinia Open, St. Petersburg Open and Cologne Open have reached its business end with all their semifinals to be played on Saturday, October 17. Get the previews, predictions and the live streaming options for each of them below.

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The Sardinia Open has seen some wildly fluctuating results and with none of the seeded players having made it to the semifinals, it could get even more intriguing.

Two of the four semifinalists are wild-cards, one is a lucky-loser and the fourth is ranked 74th in the world. Yep, it’s been that bizarre!

Marco Cecchinato will take on the lucky loser Danilo Petrovic in one of the semifinals, in what has been a fairy-tale story for the latter. Petrovic had no business to be in the main draw but Fabio Fognini’s tryst with the coronavirus brought him into the picture.

That he replaced the top seed meant he was directly pushed into the second round from where on he has now won successive matches to make it to the semifinal. Can he surprise the former top 20 player, Cecchinto and make the final for the very first time?

The other semifinal at Sardinia has Laslo Djere playing 18-year-old Lorenzo Musetti in what could be a rather interesting clash. Neither player has lost a set in the tournament so far, and both are playing the tennis of their lives.

Djere has already sent the second seeded Dusan Lajovic out while Musetti has shown talent and maturity beyond his years so far. If both play to the kind of potential that has been on offer so far, they could be looking to make the third set and give us a solid battle.

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At the Cologne Open, it’s a sharp contrast to what’s happened in Sardinia as the top three seeds have all made the semifinals.

Top seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany will take on the only unseeded player left in the draw, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in what should be a routine win for the US Open runnerup.

That said Zverev did struggle to get past qualifier Lloyd Harris, blaming it on the complacency after winning the first set while Fokina has already sent out Marin Cilic in the second round.

The Zverev v Fokina match will start at around 2 pm local time.

The other semifinal will see the second seeded Roberto Bautista-Agut taking on the third seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime. Auger-Aliassime looked like he was going to be in a battle with Radu Albot after he suffered an early break in his quarterfinal but there was no looking back for him after that.

He won 12 of the next 14 games to complete an easy win and set up his semifinal against Spain’s Bautista-Agut. The Spaniard himself was in tussle, dropping the second set before coming back to crush Hubert Hurkacz 6-0 in the third.

The St. Petersburg Open has the most exciting action among the three tournaments as Andrey Rublev takes on Denis Shapovalov and Borna Coric plays Milos Raonic.

Rublev has only recently joined the top 10 on the tennis rankings and will be a heavy favourite to go on to win the title even, the manner in which he has been playing. However, Denis Shapovalov’s consistency could test him out, as would Raonic’s powerful serving.

First up for Raonic will be a tough cookie in Coric but the former’s serve, which has been unbroken all tournament, could prove to be too much to handle for the Croat.

About Claire D'Souza 1035 Articles
Fan of all sports but a tennis lover at heart. Bawled her heart out when Federer missed those two Championships points at Wimbledon 2019 but then again, Nadal won 2022 Australian Open from two sets down. Such is life! (yes, loves both Federer and Nadal in equal doses!)

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