Grigor Dimitrov completes Top 4 domination in Marseille: four wins, no break points faced

The Top 4 seeds all held their ground in Marseille in reaching the final weekend of the Open 13, with all four notably winning their quarterfinal matches Friday without facing a break point.

Ugo Humbert emerged with the upper hand against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in compiling a 6-1, 6-4 victory to start the day. The No. 4 seed won 24 of 26 first-serve points in the pair’s first meeting since this time last year at Montpellier's Open Sud de France. Then, Humbert caught the wrong kind of air in a nasty spill during a second-set tiebreak and ultimately stopped after Davidovich Fokina forced a third set.

“The last time was not the best memory, because I retired in Montpellier after a big jump. Since this day, he called me the jumper,” Humbert said with a smile during his on-court interview.

“I played a pretty good match. It’s never easy to play against him.”

The home favorite will get a shot at avenging his Australian Open third-round loss to Hubert Hurkacz after the top-seeded defending champion halted Tomas Machac, 6-3, 6-4.

The Czech had knocked out Andy Murray and Lorenzo Musetti in straight sets, but like Humbert, Hurkacz never allowed his opponent to get a look in his service games. Eleven aces later, he had a 63-minute victory in hand.

“He started the year really strong, so I was up for a difficult challenge,” said Hurkacz. “I was serving well today and that helped me out.”

Third seed Karen Khachanov continued the trend for the higher-ranked players ahead of second seed Grigor Dimitrov’s closing act performance.

Khachanov eased past Zhang Zhizhen, 6-4, 6-1, boosted by a 74 first-serve percentage. The two were facing off for the first time.

“I knew a little bit what to expect, because his game is also big like mine,” assessed the 27-year-old. “Pretty similar patterns. He likes to play aggressive. At the end of the day, both of us were serving really well until 5-4. That’s when the chance happened.”

Pushed in the second set, Dimitrov held off France’s Arthur Rinderknech, 6-3, 7-6 (3). Though the Bulgarian was out-aced 13 to 10, he only conceded two points in a service game once—a development that played in his favor when the tiebreaker situation arrived.

“At times, it’s toss of the dice, I guess. I was able to have some good returns, good hits,” said Dimitrov. “Once I got the lead in the tiebreak, I relaxed a little bit and I was able to go behind some of the shots I really wanted to. I put him in an uncomfortable position and forced the error.”

Dimitrov, who triumphed at the start of the season in Brisbane, has won all three of his previous encounters with Khachanov. Two of those contests occurred on indoor hard courts.