Gulbis upsets Murray
Wimbledon champion Andy Murray tumbled out of the Rogers Cup on Thursday, while Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal progressed after difficult matches.
The second-seeded Murray, a two-time Rogers Cup champion, was playing his second match since his Wimbledon victory and lost 6-4, 6-3 to Ernests Gulbis. The defeat ended the Scot’s winning streak at 13 matches.
Top-seeded defending champion Djokovic avoided an upset in the last match of the day, overcoming Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Djokovic will next face seventh-seeded Richard Gasquet of France, a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 winner over ninth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan.
Nadal won his third round match, beating Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz 7-6 (6), 6-4.
Nadal, the fourth-seeded Spanish star making his first tournament appearance since losing in the first round at Wimbledon, improved his ATP Tour-leading record to 45-3 - including 7-0 on hardcourts.
“I had a very good victory today against a very difficult opponent,” Nadal said about the 6-foot-8 Janowicz. The Rogers Cup winner in 2005 and 2008, Nadal will next meet Australia’s Marinko Matosevic, a 7-6 (7), 6-7 (10), 6-3 winner over France’s Benoit Paire.
Canadians Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil advanced, the first time in 24 years that two Canadians have reached the quarterfinals in the home event.
Raonic, seeded 11th, upset sixth-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro, the Argentine player coming off a tournament victory Sunday in Washington, 7-5, 6-4. Del Potro was upset that Raonic got away with touching the net with his hand on break point in the eighth game of the second set.
“Very upset after the match I lost,” Del Portro tweeted. “About the end ... everyone saw what happened.” Raonic said it was too important of a point to call a foul on himself. “I was fortunate that the line judge didn’t see it,” he said. “It’s the exact same thing as having no challenges left and you get a bad line call. It’s bad luck. It was hard to be able to take this point on such a big point.”
Pospisil beat fifth-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (5).
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