“Only the best players are playing here” – Shanghai semi-finalist Hurkacz on his Masters 1000 consistency

Hubert Hurkacz reached his second Masters 1000 semi-final in a row by beating Fabian Marozsan 4-6, 6-1, 6-3.

It was his sixth win in Masters 1000 quarter-finals – and he has now reached at least the last eight in all Masters 1000 events except Rome.

He said afterwards, “We’ve been putting a lot of effort into the preparation here,” and it’s certainly paying off.

But before he got to the Cincinnati semi-finals in August (where he lost to Carlos Alcaraz), the Pole had not had a good recent record at the big events. This year he lost in the round of 16 in Canada, his opening match in Rome, the second round in Madrid, the third round in Monte-Carlo and the second round in both Indian Wells and Miami.

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And at Grand Slams he lost in the second round of the US Open, the round of 16 at Wimbledon, the third round at Roland-Garros, and the fourth round of the Australian Open.

“Usually like in the past years I was doing pretty decent in those events,” he told reporters afterwards. “This year, I was also struggling, I was losing quite early in all of them. I played some very good tennis in Cincinnati, and now doing it here.

“So just, you know, usually just, yeah, you know, it just brings, it’s only the best players that are playing here, and the competition is really strong. Yeah, you just got to perform really great to be in it and compete here.”

Hurkacz: We don’t need days off between events

And on the subject of the extended so-called “super Masters” events, he added: “To be honest, I think, you know, talking to other players, I think we, I mean, we don’t really need the days off in between the events. We enjoy the 54 format. I think that was, you know, that was good for us.

“But, yeah, so it’s definitely, you know, especially, if you do well, it’s really good. It’s a little bit more challenging if you don’t do that well, because with the travelling and the timing in between the tournaments, it’s just longer.”

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