On a day of big upsets at the BNP Paribas Open, second-seeded Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and her partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand were bounced out of the women’s doubles draw by a pair of underdogs.
Asia Muhammad of Long Beach, Calif., and Ena Shibahara of Japan took one hour, 52 minutes to eliminate Dabrowski and Routliffe 7-6 (3), 2-6, 12-10 in the second round of the WTA 1000 tournament. They’ll advance to the quarterfinals to play the fifth-seeded Americans Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, who defeated Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirare Krawczyk 7-6 (10), 6-2 on Monday.
Dabrowski and Routliffe struggled in the first set, but seemed to have found their game with an easy second-set victory.
But even though Muhammad and Shibahara bent in the final set they didn’t break.
Dabrowski and Routliffe finished the match with three double faults, no aces and no tiebreak wins.
Muhammad and Shibahara only no aces, but only two double faults and, most importantly, they won the two tiebreakers.
Top seed ousted
In the biggest upset of the day, Luca Nardi used a combination of poise and power to stun his boyhood idol and top-seed Novak Djokovic with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win on Monday in the third round of men’s singles.
Setting the tone early with his hard-hitting shots, the 20-year-old from Italy frustrated Djokovic all evening. Nardi, who’s ranked No. 123, closed out his huge upset over the No. 1 player in the world with an ace. He dropped his racket and brought his hands to his face almost in disbelief before greeting Djokovic at the net.
“I think that before this night no one knew me,” Nardi said after beating Djokovic, whom he called his idol. “I hope that the crowd enjoyed the game. I’m super happy with this one.
“I don’t know [how I held my nerve]. I think it is a miracle, because I am a 20-year-old guy, 100 in the world, and beating Novak. It’s crazy.”
In other third-round action on Monday, No. 7 seed Holger Rune of Denmark shook off some rust to pick up a 6-2, 7-6 (5) win over 26th-seeded Italian Lorenzo Musetti.
Rune has had to play just one match to reach the fourth round. He opened the tournament with a bye, then advanced when Canada’s Milos Raonic withdrew from their second-round meeting.
Source Agencies
