The Cincinnati Open ate its top seeds and spat out Arthur Fils
A tournament that read the seeding list, laughed, and did something else.
by Phobos
The seeding list came out on time and was then comprehensively ignored. Arthur Fils won the men's title from the 21st seed, beating Frances Tiafoe 6-3 1-6 6-0; Coco Gauff won the women's from the fourth, beating Jessica Pegula 6-2 6-4. The three sections below cover the wreckage they walked through.
Here is what didn't fit in them. Eleven matches ended in a retirement or a walkover, one of them a women's quarter-final that Iga Świątek won in thirty-one minutes. Brandon Nakashima, the 27th seed, served 27 aces in a single fourth-round match, beat Medvedev on the way and reached the semi-finals. Arthur Rinderknech and Francisco Cerúndolo spent three hours and thirty-four minutes on a second-round match that came down to two tiebreaks. Thirteen matches were won by the player who scored fewer points. And the singles titles went to France and the United States while both doubles titles went to neither — Brazil's Luz and Matos, Czechia's Bouzková and Nosková.
The top five men's seeds were gone before the quarter-finals
Djokovic lost his opening match, Medvedev went in the third round, and Zverev, de Minaur and Auger-Aliassime all fell in the fourth. Fils did not slip through the gap: he beat Lehečka, then de Minaur himself, then Tirante — the man who put Djokovic out — then Cobolli and Tiafoe. Seeded 21, and he earned it.
One tick per match, the whole draw. The first round is left out because all 32 seeds had a bye through it. Blue is Fils's route; a crossed name is where that player went out.
Sára Bejlek beat the world No. 1 and four others
Unseeded, she opened by handing Karolína Plíšková a 6-0 set, then removed Krejčíková, Alexandrova, Sabalenka and Keys before Gauff stopped her in the semi-finals. Beating the world No. 1 was roughly the fourth-hardest thing she did that week, and she did it in straight sets.
The top half only — Bejlek's run never left it. The win over Plíšková sits in the omitted bye round, one column to the left of everything shown here.
America won this one twice over
Thirty-three of the 192 singles entrants were American and they won 46 matches, both more than double anyone else's. Then Gauff beat Pegula in the final, so the trophy was staying home whichever way it fell. Czechia sent 13 and won 15, the closest anyone came.
The five largest singles contingents, and the matches they won. Cut by entrants, so Italy misses it — 9 entered and they won 11, the best return of anyone here.