By Chris Oddo | Thursday May 17, 2018
Keeping up with the game of tennis, by the numbers. Each day at Tennis Now we’ll give you a fresh set—without any further ado, here’s what’s happening after a crazy Thursday in Madrid.
11
Consecutive wins by Alexander Zverev. The German is bidding for his third successive title at Rome and he got by Kyle Edmund, converting his 8th match point in a second set tiebreaker to win 7-5, 7-6(11). Zverev did, unfortunately, have his run of 65 consecutive holds on clay broken by Edmund in the 10th game of the opening set.
Pretty impressive run for the German, who will face David Goffin the quarterfinals on Friday.
14
Number of countries represented in the men’s and women’s singles quarterfinals at Rome. The only countries represented twice are Spain (Nadal, Carreno Busta) and Germany (Zverev, Kerber).
141-31
The clay-court record of Maria Sharapova. The Russian is into the quarterfinals at Rome after taking out Daria Gavrilova, 6-3, 6-4. And then there was this point:
5
Number of Top 10 wins that Anett Kontaveit has notched since Stuttgart. Should we start penciling her in as a threat to go very deep at Roland Garros? The Estonian defeated Venus Williams, 6-2, 7-6(3) on Thursday and will face Caroline Wozniacki in Friday’s quarterfinals.
11
Number of appearances that Fabio Fognini has made in Rome. This year the Italian has finally reached the quarterfinals for the first time. He rolled past Peter Gojowczyk on Thursday to set up a clash with Rafael Nadal.
3
Number of players that have defeated Rafael Nadal on clay (Novak Djokovic, 7, Dominic Thiem 3, Gaston Gaudio, 3) more than two times. Fabio Fognini, who defeated Nadal at Rio and Barcelona in 2015, will bid to become the fourth on Friday.
5
Nadal owns a 5-match winning streak over Fognini, in addition to a 63-6 lifetime record in clay semifinals. Nadal has gone just 11-5 since 2015 in semifinals on clay and it was Fognini who snapped Nadal’s 52-match winning streak in clay semis at Rio in 2015.