It was a tough day for seeded players at the BNP Paribas Open, with Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, the world\u2019s top-ranked players, ushered out in the desert. Djokovic and Philipp Kohlschreiber resumed their third-round match that was suspended because of rain a night earlier. The unseeded German knocked off the five-time tournament champion 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Osaka lost to Belinda Bencic 6-3, 6-1 in just over an hour in the fourth round of the first title defense of her career.\u201cShe sort of came out there really aggressive,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cShe sort of knew what she wanted to do more than me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Osaka won the title at Indian Wells a year ago, she won the US and Australian opens. Her triumph in Australia made her No. 1 for the first time, but her time at the top has been rocky. Osaka fired her coach and lost in the first round in Dubai before taking on a new coach, Jermaine Jenkins, who came on court during the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a bit tricky whenever you change someone in the team, but I feel like for a first tournament we did really well,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cWe communicate well, so I think that\u2019s a really big plus. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be difficult.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next up for Kohlschreiber is Gael Monfils, who owns a 13-2 record against the German.\u201cI liked my chances more at night against Kohlschreiber, but it wasn\u2019t to be last night,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cCompletely different conditions today. I congratulate him for playing tactically really well and getting me out of my comfort zone. He deserved to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 35-year-old German started thinking he had a chance early in the first set when he survived a handful of break points on his serve. Djokovic remains alive in doubles with partner Fabio Fognini. Djokovic returned about an hour after his loss for their match.\u201cWhen I hit a good return, I was wondering why this didn\u2019t happen in singles,\u201d he said.
\nOn Tuesday, the 23rd-ranked Bencic served and returned better.The bottom half of the men\u2019s draw still includes No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal and fourth-seeded Roger Federer, both of whom breezed to victory.Djokovic owned an 8-1 record against Kohlschreiber, who beat a No. 1 player for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would say after 3-all in the first set I felt like getting closer to the set, holding my service games, which is not easy against Novak, because he\u2019s such a great returner,\u201d Kohlschreiber said. \u201cI know from that point on it\u2019s gonna be a very interesting match.\u201dDjokovic was just 1-for-5 on break-point opportunities. Kohlschreiber converted three of his four chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nadal eased by 25th-seeded Diego Schwartzman 6-3, 6-1, while Federer defeated Swiss countryman Stan Wawrinka 6-3, 6-4.In women\u2019s fourth-round matches, No. 2 Simona Halep lost to Marketa Vondrousova 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 and No. 7 Kiki Bertens was beaten by 20th-seeded Garbine Muguruza 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a tough day for seeded players at the BNP Paribas Open, with Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, the world\u2019s top-ranked players, ushered out in the desert. Djokovic and Philipp Kohlschreiber resumed their third-round match that was suspended because of rain a night earlier. The unseeded German knocked off the five-time tournament champion 6-4, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56911,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56909\/revisions\/56911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}