Norrie hands Thiem fresh Roland Garros setback; Shapovalov in Geneva quarters

World number four Dominic Thiem suffered a fresh setback in his Roland Garros build-up when he was knocked out of the Lyon ATP event in his opening match on Thursday.

Top seed Thiem, 27, lost to Britain’s 49th-ranked Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-2 in just over an hour.

Thiem, a two-time runner-up at Roland Garros, won just one match at the Italian Open last week, arriving in Rome on the back of a semi-final run at Madrid where he belatedly started his clay court season.

“It was an unexpected victory,” said Norrie. “I played well and I could not be happier.” Norrie will face either French qualifier Arthur Rinderknech or Italian sixth seed Jannik Sinner for a place in the semi-finals.

Greek second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, the champion at the Monte Carlo Masters, eased into the last eight against Tommy Paul of the US 6-1, 6-4.

French number one Gael Monfils, who on Tuesday won a match for the first time in 15 months, was knocked out by Japan’s world number 60 Yoshihito Nishioka, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/2). Nishioka’s reward is a clash with Tsitsipas on Friday.

elsewhere, Coco Gauff advanced to the semifinals of the Emilia-Romagna Open by beating Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday.

The 17-year-old Gauff, who last week reached the Italian Open semifinals for her career-best result on clay, will next face Czech player Katerina Siniakova, who beat eighth-seeded Caroline Garcia 7-5, 6-1.

Siniakova eliminated Serena Williams on Tuesday.

Former US Open champion Sloane Stephens also reached the semifinals by beating Sara Errani of Italy 6-3, 6-0.

Stephens will face either second-seeded Petra Martić or sixth-seeded Qiang Wang.

Meanwhile, top seed Roger Federer was upset in the second round of the Gonet Geneva Open, and second seed Denis Shapovalov nearly suffered the same fate. But the Canadian rallied past Italian qualifier Marco Cecchinato 6-7(4), 7-5, on Thursday to reach the quarter-finals, which will be played later in the day.

Shapovalov did well to shake off the disappointment of letting slip two match points against Rafael Nadal at his last tournament, the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome. The World No. 15 will play Serbian Laslo Djere for a spot in the semi-finals.

How To Watch This match was supposed to be played Wednesday evening, but was pushed back due to rain. And once play began, Cecchinato showed some of the form that has helped him win three ATP Tour titles and reach the Roland Garros semi-finals in 2018.

Shapovalov, who is pursuing his second tour-level crown this week, dug into the Swiss clay and broke the World No. 104’s serve three times across the final two sets to advance after two hours and 22 minutes. The Canadian hit 15 aces and won 86 per cent of his first-serve points.

His next opponent, Djere, finished off a 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-1 victory against sixth seed Fabio Fognini. The Serbian led 2-0 in the third set when play was suspended on Wednesday.

Pablo Cuevas also advanced to the quarter-finals when he eliminated 18-year-old Frenchman Arthur Cazaux 6-2, 6-4. The Uruguayan veteran will next face fourth seed Grigor Dimitrov.

Meanwhile, the prestigious ATP and WTA tournament at Indian Wells, California, will return in October, organizers said Thursday, after twice being shelved due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This year’s edition, postponed from its customary dates in March due to COVID-19, is now intended to take place in October, for 2021 only,” said an ATP statement.

The 2020 edition of the Indian Wells event was cancelled as the first wave of the pandemic swept the world.

The tournament dates for 2021 will be announced after the confirmation of the autumn calendar by the ATP and WTA Tours.

Elsewhere, the ATP’s Stockholm Open will now take place from November 7-13 in the same week as the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

“The ATP continues to monitor the impact of COVID-19 in assessing the provisional Q4 calendar, including the three-week sequence of events in Asia, in order to ensure optimised player flow,” said a ATP statement.

“Since the resumption of the Tour in August 2020, we have had to take an agile approach to the calendar with the aim of staging as many of our events as possible,” said ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi.

Agencies