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Evans & Broady bid for Washington QFs

Ros Satar
Tennis

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By Ros Satar

  • Dan Evans v Jack Sock [6] – First meeting
  • Naomi Broady v Risa Ozaki – First meeting
WASHINGTON, USA – Resurgent Brits Dan Evans and Naomi Broady will bid for places in the Citi Open quarter-finals as they get their US hard court summer off to winning ways.

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Dan Evans v Jack Sock [6] – First meeting

Evans skipped Davis Cup to rest a shoulder injury and to deal with some family issues, and the time out seems to have helped him as he has picked up two very solid wins in Washington at the start of the US summer hard court swing.

He was dominant against Germany’s Benjamin Becker for the loss of just three games, but picked up a serious scalp in taking out 1th seed, troubled Grigor Dimitrov. It has been a tough ride for the Bulgarian, who has parted ways with Franco Davin and has struggled to regain the type of form that took him to the Wimbledon semi-final in 2014.

Meanwhile Evans has turned around his fortunes, buckling down and working hard earning a third round encounter at Wimbledon with Roger Federer, and breaking the Top 100.

Evans is an aggressive baseliner, and moves very well and can defend solidly. This mach-up pits him against another aggressive baseliner in Sock, who can be expected to advance forward to serve and volley with a serve/forehand one-two punch. Evans will need to watch out for Sock’s second serve – one of his strengths and Sock is pretty handy at the net.

This is a toughie for Evans, but confidence comes with big wins, but Sock coming off Davis Cup duty is possibly a little more match-ready at the moment.

Prediction: Sock in three sets.

 

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Naomi Broady v Risa Ozaki – First meeting

Do not let the Ozaki’s ranking of 128 make this a forgone conclusion that the Brit will coast into the quarter-finals. Ozaki took the battle to defending champion and second seed Sloane Stephens, and we have seen plenty of times this year what confidence will do to a player.

Broady has a solid serve that makes it very hard for her opponents to get a sniff at her serve, and is very aggressive on her return games. However, she does have an ability to make things hard for herself at times.

Ozaki has managed to pull out a couple of good wins this year and managed to take a set off Genie Bouchard in Indian Wells after fighting through qualifying this year but for the most part plies her trade on the lower tier of the tour.

On paper this should be Broady’s in the bag. But do not be shocked if she needs to come from a set down against the Japanese player to get the job done.

Prediction: Broady in three sets.

Both Evans and Broady are scheduled not before 10:30pm BST.