Daniil Medvedev cruises through to last 16 of Cincinnati Masters as Casper Ruud crashes out

Daniil Medvedev cruised through to the last 16 of the Cincinnati Masters in straight sets but Casper Ruud crashed out to Max Purcell.

Medvedev wasted little time in dispatching Lorenzo Musetti for the second time in six days, having faced the Italian at last week’s Canadian Open.

Apart from losing his opening service game, Medvedev was never troubled, dominating behind his first serve and hitting 25 winners as he completed a 6-3 6-2 victory.

“But then it comes [down] to being the better in the tough conditions, and that’s what I managed to do today.

“We both made some mistakes, we both made some double faults and stuff like this, but I managed to be a little bit better in important moments and actually I felt like I was playing better and better during the match. So that’s a positive thing for the next round.”

Medvedev won this event back in 2019 and takes on Alexander Zverev next after the German battled past Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 7-5 6-4.

Zverev was forced to dig deep but eventually prevailed when he broke Nishioka late in the second and served out the straight-sets win.

Elsewhere, Ruud was stunned in three sets by Australia’s Purcell. The Norwegian fifth seed was punished for not taking his chances as Purcell closed out a 6-4 3-6 6-4 victory.

Ruud served well, firing 12 aces, but failed to produce in the game’s big moments and, crucially, only converted one of seven break points.

Contrastingly, Purcell was far more efficient, breaking his opponent’s serve twice from the three chances he was presented as he set up a last-16 clash with either Stan Wawrinka or Frances Tiafoe.

Jannik Sinner, last week’s winner in Toronto, also fell at the last-32 stage. Like Ruud, the Italian was poor when it mattered most, failing to convert any of his five break points in a straight-sets defeat to Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic.

Intriguingly, Tommy Paul beat France’s Ugo Humbert 6-1 7-6(4) to set up another showdown with Carlos Alcaraz, having beaten the world No. 1 in the Canadian Open.

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