CINCINNATI:
\nTop seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Alexander Zverev crashed out of the Cincinnati Masters in a matter of hours on a rainy Wednesday of fourth-round action.
\nAmerican Tommy Paul saved a match point on the way to a 4-6, 7-6 (8\/6), 6-4 upset of Germany\u2019s Zverev.
\nBut the biggest shock came on the women\u2019s side where Czech Sara Bejlek, ranked 35th, stunned world number one Sabalenka 7-6 (9\/7), 6-4 in a gritty match that finished up shortly after the clock ticked past midnight into Thursday morning.
\nFormer champion Sabalenka led by a break in the opening set and was up 5-1 in the tiebreaker before Bejlek roared back to pocket the set in 65 minutes.
\nBejlek broke the Belarusian three times in the second set, rallying from 4-1 down and securing the win with a love game capped by an ace.
\n\u201cI lost my words \u2014 it feels incredible,\u201d Bejlek said after her first win over a top-10 player.
\n\u201cI was playing what I was feeling and not really thinking. I was trying not to be nervous and just play. I believed in myself no matter what.\u201d
\nBejlek, who won the Abu Dhabi hard court title in February as a qualifier, booked a quarter-final clash with American Madison Keys.
\nIt was yet another setback for Sabalenka as the start of the US Open looms on August 30.
\nThe four-time Grand Slam champion was ousted in the fourth round of the Toronto Masters last week, having lost in the same round at Wimbledon and in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.
\nZverev\u2019s match was interrupted by rain for 90 minutes in the seventh game of the second set and had two more five-minute pauses as drops were dried from the court.
\nFrench Open champion Zverev had a chance to close it out at 6-5 in the second-set tiebreaker but stuffed a volley into the net.
\nThe German again gained an edge in the deciding set with a break for 4-2, but Paul broke back in the next game and again for a 5-4 lead on the way to his third win over Zverev in their last four meetings.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure how I did it,\u201d Paul said. \u201cI put some returns in, he gave me some looks at second serves and he threw in a few doubles (faults). That always helps a ton.
\n\u201cI went after the ball a bit more, I was having fun out there.\u201d
\nSecond seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada was another casualty, falling 6-3, 6-4 to American Frances Tiafoe.
\nZverev\u2019s conqueror Paul next faces Roland Garros runner-up Flavio Cobolli, who labored two and a half hours to engineer a turnaround against red-hot Spaniard Rafael Jodar 4-6, 7-6 (7\/3), 6-3.
\nAmerican sixth seed Taylor Fritz dispatched Australian Chris O\u2019Connell 6-4, 6-3.
\nThiago Tirante, who upset Novak Djokovic in the second round, continued his surprise run, reaching his first Masters quarter-final with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Jakub Mensik.
\nAustralian Alex de Minaur was no match for Frenchman Arthur Fils, who cruised to a 6-3, 6-4 victory over the fifth seed.
\nGauff advances
\nThe women\u2019s 2023 champion Coco Gauff saved all eight break points she faced in a 6-3, 6-2 win over Czech Marie Bouzkova.
\nThe fourth seed double-faulted on her first match point but leapt up to smash an overhead winner on her second chance.
\n\u201cI played well the whole match, going for my shots, coming forward and not letting her counter-punch,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI\u2019m happy with how I played.\u201d
\nDefending women\u2019s champion Iga Swiatek needed four match points to get past Diane Parry of France 6-3, 6-3.
\nThe seventh-seeded Pole now faces a re-run of last week\u2019s Toronto final against Elena Rybakina, who beat Diana Shnaider 6-4, 6-4.
\nSix-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek captured her first title of 2026 with her victory over reigning Australian Open champion Rybakina in Toronto.
\nTwo other current Grand Slam champions bowed out.
\nUkraine\u2019s Marta Kostyuk rallied from a set down to beat French Open winner Mirra Andreeva 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.
\nWimbledon champion Linda Noskova fell to Amanda Anisimova 6-1, 6-4 in another weather-disrupted match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CINCINNATI: Top seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Alexander Zverev crashed out of the Cincinnati Masters in a matter of hours on a rainy Wednesday of fourth-round action. American Tommy Paul saved a match point on the way to a 4-6, 7-6 (8\/6), 6-4 upset of Germany\u2019s Zverev. But the biggest shock came on the women\u2019s side …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101963,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101932\/revisions\/101963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}