Cuevas and Tsurenko on track to defend titles

Semi finals are set in Dubai and Acapulco and quarter finals ready to go in São Paulo, all on Friday, UAE, Mexico and Brazil times.

The top seeds have suffered in the womens draw in Acapulco and the men’s draw in São Paulo, with other upsets here and there.

Quarter final results in Dubai:

In a battle of wildcards, Malek Jaziri defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4 3-6 6-3

He will play Roberto Bautista Agut in the semis

Roberto Bautista Agut (3) defeated Borna Coric 7-6(4) 6-4

Filip Krajinovic (7) defeated Evgeny Donskoy 6-1 6-2

He will play Lucas Pouille in the semis

Lucas Pouille (2) defeated Yuichi Sugita (8) 3-6 6-3 6-2

Just as an aside, Andy Murray won this event in 2017, so being on the sidelines and unable to defend his 500 ranking points, expect a significant slide further down the tree, barely hanging on to a top thirty position.

Novak Djokovic is still just outside the top ten but he is fortunate in that the next points he has to defend are not until the Italian Open in May.

If he can fully recover from his elbow injury, and come back at near the top of his game, he has no points to defend after Wimbledon which gives him a chance of finishing 2018 nearer the top of the top ten.

Of course there a lot of ifs involved here, not just the obvious ones.

Quarter final results in Acapulco:

Women

Three of the top four seeds exited at the quarter final stage

In a major upset, Stefanie Voegele from Switzerland, ranked 183, defeated top seed Sloane Stephens 6-4 5-7 6-2

She will play Rebecca Peterson in an unseeded semi final 

Qualifier Rebecca Peterson defeated Shuai Zhang (4) 6-2 6-1

Wildcard Dasha Gavrilova (3) defeated Veronica Cepede Royg 6-4 4-6 6-2

She will play Lesia Tsurenko in the second semi final 

Lesia Tsurenko (7) defeated Kiki Mladenovic (2) 6-2 6-2

Tsurenko is the defending champion here, and she beat Mladenovic to win the title in 2017

Men

Jared Donaldson defeated Feliciano López 6-3 6-1

He will play Kevin Anderson in the semis

Kevin Anderson (5) defeated Hyeon Chung 7-6(5) 7-4

Sascha Zverev (2) defeated Ryan Harrison 6-4 6-1

He will play Juan Martin del Potro in the semis

Juan Martin del Potro (6) defeated Dominic Thiem (3) 6-2 7-6(7)

Remaining second round results in São Paulo:

Albert Ramos-Vinolas (1) defeated qualifier Guilherme Clezar 6-3 6-4

Nicolas Jarry defeated Guido Pella (6) 6-7(2) 6-4 7-6(2)

Horacio Zeballos defeated Gaël Monfils (4) 6-3 3-6 6-3

Rogerio Dutra Silva defeated Nicolas Kicker 6-4 6-2

Quarter finals will be:

Albert Ramos-Vinolas (1) v Nicolás Jarry 

Horacio Zeballos v Rogerio Dutra Silva 

Leonardo Mayer (5) v Pablo Cuevas (3)

Cuevas is the defending champion, having defeated Ramos-Viñolas in the final of the 2017 Brasil Open

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez v Fabio Fognini (2)