Frenchmen Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin own six ATP Tour doubles titles as a pair. And on Sunday, they will have a chance to make it seven.

The second seeds advanced to the championship match of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships with a 6-4, 7-5 victory against Brit Dominic Inglot and American Austin Krajicek on Friday evening. In the final, they will face this year’s Monte-Carlo champions, Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor, or defending champion Jan-Lennard Struff (w/McLachlan) and his partner, Frenchman Lucas Pouille.

“[We are] one step away from the trophy and the title,” Mahut said. “It’s going to be really hard either we play Lucas and Struffi or a great Croatian team, so we have one day to be ready.”

The fans were out in full force for the first doubles semi-final at this ATP 500 event, cheering loudly for the great action at Ariake Tennis Park.

“It was great. We saw a couple of French flags in the crowd supporting us, so that was really nice. The atmosphere was great, almost a full stadium for a semi-final,” Roger-Vasselin said. “It’s great for doubles, it’s great for us. Really happy to get to a final.”

Mahut threw his arms in the air in celebration when his team clinched its triumph after one hour and 14 minutes. The Frenchmen saved the two break points they faced, converting on two of their four opportunities.

“Every time I play here I have so much support… today playing a semi-final in front of this crowd is the first time [I’ve played in front of such a crowd], I can say that,” Mahut said. “I hope they come back on Sunday for the final as well.”

Mahut, a 25-time tour-level doubles titlist and Roger Vasselin, who has captured 18 tour-level crowns — including a 2013 victory in Tokyo with Rohan Bopanna — are not just enjoying their wins. They have embraced the city, too.

“Enjoying the tournament, enjoying the city as well. Enjoying the people who are really nice. It’s always nice to have some support on the practice courts. They are coming asking for autographs. It is always nice,” Roger-Vasselin said. “Really happy and of course when you have a good week, it’s always much better.”

Kubot/Melo Return To Beijing Final
Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo reached their second straight final at the China Open on Friday, beating Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev 7-5, 7-5.

The defending champions broke serve on six occasions to record their seventh straight victory at the ATP 500 event after one hour and 33 minutes. Kubot and Melo have not dropped a set en route to the final.

The Polish-Brazilian tandem will face Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski or Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek for the title. The unseeded pairings will contest the second semi-final on Saturday.

Alexander Zverev boosted his chances on Friday of qualifying for the third consecutive year to the Nitto ATP Finals, where he is the defending champion.

The second-seeded German was solid on serve and withstood 15 aces from American Sam Querrey for a 7-6(3), 6-2 quarter-final victory over 73 minutes at the China Open. In his opening three matches, Zverev has consistently found success on serve in the Chinese capital. The 6’6″ right-hander has claimed 61 per cent of second-serve points (27/44) and committed only five double faults. 

Having started the week in 11th position in the 2019 ATP Race To London, Zverev has risen to eighth position on 2,255 points — 140 points behind seventh-placed Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut. David Goffin, who will compete in the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships semi-finals on Saturday, is 20 points behind Zverev in ninth place.

Last year, Zverev beat Novak Djokovic for the Nitto ATP Finals crown, the only biggest title of his career.

The 22-year-old, who is now 37-19 on the season that includes his 11th ATP Tour title in Geneva (d. Jarry), will next play Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece. Tsitsipas leads Zverev 2-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, having won their past two meets in three sets at the 2018 Rogers Cup in Toronto and the Mutua Madrid Open in May this year.

“I am very happy to be in the semi-finals,” said Zverev. “I am very happy with the way I am playing and tomorrow is going to be a very interesting match against Stefanos. A lot of spectators are looking forward to that and I am as well.

“He is my Laver Cup team mate. We got a little bit closer at the Laver Cup as well. We understand each other very well now, so I hope it is going to be a fantastic match.”

Zverev struggled to breakdown Querrey’s serve in a hard-fought 45-minute opener, but the German broke clear at 2/2 in the first-set tie-break. Zverev hit 17 winners and committed just five unforced errors.

From 2-2 in the second set, Zverev won four straight games. In keeping the ball low, Zverev forced Querrey to move up the court and at 2-3, 30/40 in the second set, the American made a forehand approach error. Then, in the final game, Zverev’s consistency from the baseline helped him to a second service break.

When the No. 1 player in the ATP Rankings calls his performance ‘flawless’, his level was probably pretty high.

Novak Djokovic was playing so well in Friday’s Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships quarter-finals against World No. 24 Lucas Pouille that he took a 6-1, 4-0 lead against the Frenchman in just more than 30 minutes. The top seed, who triumphed in 50 minutes, admitted that those days don’t happen often.

“You always hope it can happen regularly and it can happen in every match that you play, but it doesn’t always work,” Djokovic said. “So it does depend on various things, not just the way you hit the tennis ball, but the way you feel physically, mentally, emotionally. It all has to be aligned for you to have a performance like this, so I guess this was the day for me.”

Djokovic was clear that a performance like his against Pouille did not happen by accident. Although he does not find a level that high every day, he puts in the work to position himself to be able to do so.

“Every day you wake up and you’ve got to earn that feeling. It’s not just coming to you naturally,” Djokovic said. “You’ve got to practise. You’ve got to understand what works for you, the routines, the overall feeling on the court, how to not just step into that zone, but also stay there for the entire match.”

Players knocking off a few consecutive winners that draw ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ from the crowd happens relatively often. But maintaining that level for the duration of a match against the best players in the world is far more difficult.

“That’s probably even a bigger challenge,” Djokovic said. “So I do enjoy [being at that level], but I try at the same time not to really get carried away by being so overjoyed with everything — which is great because this is exactly how you want to feel — but at the same time, you want to stay focussed on the next point. That’s a right state of mind.”

The first serve is a weapon that can deliver free points or set players up to aggressively finish off a point. But Djokovic limited Pouille to only 48 per cent of his first-serve points won.

“It was definitely one of the best matches I’ve played this year. Best one of this week [and it] came at the right time. I thought Lucas was playing really well the first couple of matches in this tournament,” Djokovic said. “I took away the time from him. I served well, served many aces, returned a lot of his serves back and just used every opportunity to come in. Just overall, a really flawless performance.”

Most performances for players on the ATP Tour are average by their standards. So the way Djokovic performed in Colosseum Friday was not something that was lost on the Serbian.

“I do enjoy it as much as my team or people that cheer me on or people that are in the tennis stadium. When you experience that perfect flow state where everything really works, whatever you do, that’s where you want to be, basically, in that state of mind,” Djokovic said. “That’s where you want your game to be every single time you step on the court to play a match.”

It’s been a tremendous debut in Tokyo thus far for Djokovic, who is trying to win a tournament on his main draw debut for the 10th time, with the last occurrence coming at 2017 Eastbourne. And it hasn’t just been the 32-year-old’s tennis, but his overall comfort in the city both on and off the court.

“I’m enjoying my time here very much. It’s the first time [I have played] in [the] Japan Open and I do feel very comfortable. People are very kind to me and to my team. I get a lot of support on the court as well, which is always very much needed and something that you hope for,” Djokovic said. “So of course in these kinds of conditions — which are also quite suitable to my style of the game, the speed of the court and the weather — everything is really perfectly matching myself on the court and off the court for me in order to be at the top of my game and to perform as well as I did today.”

Karen Khachanov got off to a slow start on Friday, but responded with a good attitude and gameplay at the China Open to reach his second ATP Tour semi-final of the year.

The fourth-seeded Russian overcame Nitto ATP Finals contender Fabio Fognini, the sixth seed from Italy, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in one hour and 46 minutes.

Khachanov will next challenge top-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem or 2016 champion Andy Murray of Great Britain on Saturday.

Fognini struck the ball well initially, giving Khachanov no rhythm, and took a 3-0 lead. Khachanov got back on serve at 2-3, but Fognini broke for a second time in the sixth game. The Italian led by a set and had a break point for a 2-1 advantage in the second set, before Khachanov won six of the next seven games.

The 23-year-old Khachanov, who also reached the Coupe Rogers semi-finals in Montreal (l. to Medvedev), struck 19 winners for his 25th match victory of the season (25-21).

Fognini, this year’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters champion, is currently 13th in the 2019 ATP Race To London — 1,130 points behind eighth-placed Italian Matteo Berrettini for one of the four remaining berths at the Nitto ATP Finals. The elite season finale will be held at The O2 in London from 10-17 November.

Rafael Nadal will have to wait another year to pursue his first Rolex Shanghai Masters title. The Spaniard was forced to withdraw from the eighth ATP Masters 1000 event of the year with a left hand injury.

The injury also left him unable to take the court for his second singles match last month at Laver Cup. Nadal, a two-time finalist in Shanghai (2009 and 2017), hoped to build on his current 11-match winning streak. The Masters 1000 titles record holder has won 28 of his past 29 matches, a run that includes his fourth US Open title (d. Medvedev) and 12th Roland Garros triumph (d. Thiem), in addition to Masters 1000 crowns in Montreal (d. Medvedev) and Rome (d. Djokovic).

The withdrawal gives defending Shanghai champion Novak Djokovic an opportunity to close the gap on Nadal in the battle to finish year-end World No. 1. 

Coming into this week the Serbian trailed Nadal by 1,960 points in the ATP Race to London, an indicator of where players will be positioned at the end of the season. But Djokovic could earn 500 points if he wins the Tokyo title this weekend and another 1,000 points by winning Shanghai.

Nadal is scheduled to compete next at the Rolex Paris Masters.

Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic is a little bit closer to making the International Tennis Hall of Fame next July. The 2001 Wimbledon champion received the most fan votes during a recent five-week voting period that drew interest from fans in more than 120 countries.

Ivanisevic finished in first place, followed by 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez of Spain, Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman, winner of nine major doubles titles and former doubles World No. 1, and Spain’s Sergi Bruguera, back-to-back Roland Garros champion. This year marks the second time that the International Tennis Hall of Fame has incorporated a fan vote into its induction process.

“In today’s digital world, sports fans are more knowledgeable and connected to athletes than ever before. It makes sense to give them a voice in determining who will be the recipients of tennis’ ultimate honour. With votes coming in from more than 120 countries around the world, we’re glad to see that so many tennis fans have embraced fan voting as a means to engage with tennis history and stay connected with tennis greats beyond their playing days,” said Todd Martin, CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Nominees are determined by a combination of the results of the votes from the official voting group, comprised of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers, as well as bonus points earned through the fan vote. To be inducted, a candidate must receive 75 per cent or more affirmative votes from the combined results of the official voting group and fan vote bonuses.

Ivanisevic will receive three bonus percentage points, Martínez two and Bjorkman one. Once the official voting group results and fan vote bonuses are compiled, the International Tennis Hall of Fame Class of 2020 will be officially announced during the Australian Open in January.

Alexander Zverev leapfrogged into 10^th place in the ATP Race To London – two away from the eighth and final qualification spot – on Thursday with a convincing 6-3, 6-1 win against Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime at the China Open in Beijing.

The reigning Nitto ATP Finals champion played confidently and showed clear thinking all match to reach his ninth quarter-final of the season at the ATP 500.

Zverev broke in the fifth game of the opener when Auger-Aliassime lifted a backhand long. The German finished the set with a drop shot on approach.

Auger-Aliassime, who’s close to qualifying for the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, gathered momentum by erasing a break point in his opening service game of the second set. But Zverev never let the 19-year-old into the match, stepping into the court and pinning the Canadian behind the baseline to break twice more.

Zverev is looking to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals for the third consecutive season. The German beat Novak Djokovic in the 2018 final for the biggest title of his career.

Zverev currently has 2,165 points in the Race, only 15 points behind ninth-placed Kei Nishikori of Japan (2,180) and 20 points behind eighth-placed Matteo Berrettini of Italy (2,185). Zverev can add 45 more points to his tally and slide into eighth place by beating American Sam Querrey and making the semi-finals.

Querrey showed impressive resolve, fighting past Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 7-6(2), 6-7(3), 6-3. Querrey served for the second set at 5-4 but recovered in the third to make his first quarter-final since July at Wimbledon.

In their lone FedEx ATP Head2Head matchup, Zverev beat Querrey at the 2017 Laver Cup in Prague 6-4, 6-4.