Madrid Open - 04/30
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Ace Cream's daily newsletter during Masters 1000s and Grand Slams, every morning at 8:30.
Today is Thursday, April 30, in Madrid it's 08:30 and it's 14 degrees. Alright, let's get started.
On today's menu
- 🇮🇹 Sinner suffers against Jodar but closes in two sets, semifinal completed across all Masters 1000s
- 🇫🇷 Fils unstoppable: Lehecka beaten, semifinal with Jannik on the way
- 🇷🇺 Potapova makes history: first lucky loser to reach a WTA 1000 semifinal
- 🇺🇦 Kostyuk demolishes Noskova in the second set: 7-6 6-0
- 🇳🇴 Ruud-Blockx opens the program, Cobolli-Zverev rematch in the evening
WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY:
🇮🇹 Sinner Suffers Against Jodar But Closes In Two Sets
Jannik Sinner beat Rafael Jodar 6-2 7-6(0) in one hour and fifty-six minutes, completing the collection: with Madrid, Jannik has now reached at least the semifinals at all nine Masters 1000s of the season, the sixth player in history to do so. The first set was straightforward, the second got off to a tough start: five break points saved, Jodar consistently leading on serve and the Arena fully behind him, until a tie-break in which Sinner won eleven consecutive points and closed without conceding anything.
What stays with you after the match isn't so much the final score as the moment when Jannik found a way to take back control of a situation Madrid hadn't yet thrown at him. The Spaniard, a nineteen-year-old with a wildcard, played the kind of week that changes a season, and somehow walked off court feeling like he'd lost a match he had genuinely managed to complicate. For Sinner, Fils now awaits in the semifinals, which at this stage of the tournament was hard not to expect.
🇫🇷 Fils Keeps Winning On Clay
Arthur Fils beat Jiri Lehecka 6-3 6-4 in one hour and fifteen minutes, without conceding a single break point in the entire match and extending to nine his streak of consecutive wins on clay in 2026. He's the player in best form on the surface right now, after the title in Barcelona, and he reaches the Madrid semifinal without ever truly suffering in a match this tournament.
For Lehecka, the week ends with the feeling of a tournament built well up to the round of 16, then snuffed out by an opponent who, the moment his first serve started landing, took away the space in which the Czech had dominated Musetti. Against Sinner he plays for the first time in his career, and the first time in a Masters 1000 semifinal: right now on clay, the Frenchman is probably the most novel storyline on the calendar.
🇷🇺 Potapova Makes History: First Lucky Loser In A 1000 Semifinal
Anastasia Potapova beat Karolina Pliskova 6-1 6-7(4) 6-3, becoming the first lucky loser to reach the semifinals of a WTA 1000 tournament since the Tier format was introduced (1990). The Russian, who entered the draw only after losing in qualifying, missed three match points in the second set and found herself down 1-3 in the third, before winning sixteen of the last eighteen points of the match.
There's something in Potapova's week that escapes the categories we usually use to read a draw, something to do with how she seems to have learned to inhabit those moments when matches normally slip away. Pliskova, on the other side, leaves a Madrid week that had begun to feel like one last grand parade: the sense, watching from across the court, is that the ending was written above all by how quickly Potapova realized when to step up the first serve.
🇺🇦 Kostyuk Overwhelms Noskova In The Second Set
Marta Kostyuk beat Linda Noskova 7-6(1) 6-0, taking out the thirteenth seed and reaching her first ever Madrid semifinal. The first set took an hour and four minutes and ended in a tie-break, the second lasted twenty-three: a momentum that, once seized, ended in a scoreline rarely seen at this level.
More than the quality of her returns, what counts is how Kostyuk held the first set together in a match that had yet to tilt her way. For Noskova, after the win over Gauff, it's the kind of defeat that, once the tournament is over, tends to read better with the distance of the weeks that follow. In the semifinal she now faces Potapova: two matches not easy to predict, and precisely for that reason interesting inside a WTA draw that Sabalenka had held together until Tuesday.
WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY:
- Ruud vs Blockx (ATP) - Opens Manolo Santana at 13:00. Quarterfinal for the defending champion, after the three-hour battle with Tsitsipas, against the twenty-one-year-old Belgian at his first Masters 1000 at this level. On paper there's a clear gap, but certain three-setters always leave something on you.
- Andreeva vs Baptiste (WTA) - On Manolo Santana, not before 16:00. First career semifinal in Madrid for the Russian, who on the eve of her nineteenth birthday eliminated Fernandez. For the American, two top scalps this week, Paolini and Sabalenka. The most unpredictable match of the day.
- Cobolli vs Zverev (ATP) - Evening session on Manolo, not before 20:00. Rematch twelve days after Munich, where Cobolli beat the German to reach the final. This time on a faster surface, after Zverev already came through a tough three-setter against Mensik.
- Potapova vs Kostyuk (WTA) - Closing on Manolo Santana, not before 21:30. The lucky loser against the Ukrainian at her first Madrid semifinal, in a half of the draw where the bracket-line is now just a formality to respect.
Read more
- Sinner, first "semi" in Madrid! Jodar falls in two sets
- ATP Madrid: Fils handles Lehecka, will face Sinner in semifinal
- Sinner into the semifinals at the Madrid Open 2026: Jodar beaten in two sets
- WTA Madrid, anything goes between Potapova and Pliskova: Anastasia is the first lucky loser in a 1000 semifinal
- Potapova quells Pliskova in Madrid; first lucky loser in WTA 1000 semifinal
- Thursday April 30th Order of Play at Madrid Open 2026
Have a good breakfast and a good day.
See you tomorrow at 08:30 with TIE-Breakfast
