Coric outlasts Davidovich Fokina in three-and-a-half hour Madrid battle

Croat Borna Coric, the No 17 seed, advanced to the last eight of the Madrid Masters by edging out Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the No 29 seed, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-6 (5) at the Caja Magica on Tuesday.

The grinding battle nearly ticked past three and a half hours as Coric benefitted from a lucky net cord winner at 5-5 in the third set tiebreak, before closing out his hard-earned victory, much to the chagrin of Davidovich Fokina.

Coric – “I kept my head high”

“I would say we were both very dead on the court today in the third set,” said Coric after the win. “I was just a little but lucky with the net cord on the last point, but overall I was really happy with the tennis and I was very happy with my head as well because I kept calm and I had many difficult situations on the court but I just kept my head high and I was just fighting until the end.”

26-year-old Coric is into his ninth Masters 1000 quarter-final, and he improves to 9-5 lifetime in Madrid, and 10-8 overall in the 2023 season.

Coric reaches a Masters quarter-final on clay for the first time since 2019.

Coric, ranked No 20, is into the quarter-finals at Madrid for the first time since 2017. He will face German lucky loser Daniel Altmaier next.

In the previous rounds of the Madrid tournament, the Croat won against French wildcard Hugo Gaston (6-3, 6-3) and Pole Hubert Hurkacz, the No 12 seed (7-6 (3), 6-3).

Davidovich Fokina, ranked No 35, beat Albert Ramos-Vinolas (6-3, 6-4) and edged out Dane Holger Rune, the No 6 seed (7-6 (1), 5-7, 7-6 (5)) earlier in the tournament.

Madrid Masters, other last 16 results (Caja Magica, clay, EUR 7.705.780, most recent results first):

• Bernabe Zapata Miralles vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas
• Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Pedro Cachin
• Taylor Fritz vs. Zhizhen Zhang
• Carlos Alcaraz (1) beat Alexander Zverev (13): 6-1, 6-2
• Aslan Karatsev (Q) beat Daniil Medvedev (2): 7-6 (1), 6-4
• Daniel Altmaier beat Jaume Munar: 6-3, 6-0
• Karen Khachanov (10) beat Andrey Rublev (5): 7-6 (8), 6-4

You might also like this

Ruthless Alcaraz hammers Zverev to reach quarter-finals in Madrid

tennis majors

Kyrgios, Fritz headline as UTS returns in Los Angeles for first of four events in 2023

tennis majors