September 20, 2019 – Not a bad day for Croatian tennis players after Borna Coric and doubles team Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor advance to the semifinal of the St. Petersburg Open in Russia.
HTS reports that Borna Coric is in the semifinal of the ATP tournament in St. Petersburg! Croatia’s best tennis player achieved another turnaround and celebrated in three sets, this time in action against Norwegian player Casper Ruud, 60th on the ATP ranking – 3:6, 7:5, 6:3.
Ruud was up by a set and had a 3-2 lead in the quarter-final, with the serve in the second set, but the Zagreb native once again managed to find a way to victory.
Coric took the second set after he broke his opponent in the 6th and 12th games. The sixth game of the third set was crucial for Coric when he took away Ruud’s serve for the third time in the match. Borna managed seven aces during the match and achieved a first-serve percentage of 60 percent.
This success has moved Coric up one position on the ATP ranking, making him the current 14th best tennis player in the world. To reach the final, Coric will play against the winner of the match between Kukuskin – Sousa.
Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor, the first-seed in St. Petersburg this week, also won a spot in the semifinal on Thursday. In the first round, the Croatian duo was better than Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis and Serbian Janko Tipsarevic (6:3, 6:4), and topped American Nicholas Monroe and Belarusian Andrei Vasilevski (who didn’t have a single break point in the match) in the quarterfinal – 6:4, 6:2.
Mektic and Skugor will play Igor Zelenay and Divij Sharan in the semifinal on Saturday.
Recall, Donna Vekic lost in the round of 16 at the Japan Women’s Open on Thursday against Misaki Doi.
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