Rogers Cup Tennis – Murray avoids Big gun as Djokovic is defeated

Weekend Tennis: The Rogers Cup Final Stages

We’re down to the last eight in both Montreal and Toronto as some of the world’s biggest stars do battle for this pivotal Masters title.

With just over a fortnight to go until the start of the year’s final Grand Slam in New York, all 16 stars would love to get their hands on the respective Canada Open trophies. With it being the 125^th edition of the Toronto event, the Men will be even more eager to prevail.

It should be a cracking weekend of action.

Williams Sisters Bid To Book Semi-Final Showdown

One of the big stories in the WTA event in Montreal revolves around the possibility of seeing defending champ Serena Williams meet older sister Venus in the last four.

The elder sister may not be at the same standard as yesteryear but she is still capable of big performances and we’ve already seen that this week. After defeating lesser-known opponents Pavlyuchenkovic and Putintseva in rounds one and two, she cause an upset by knocking out No.6 seed Angelique Kerber to book her place in Friday’s quarter-final against Spanish starlet Carla Suarez Navarra, who shock Maria Sharapova on Thursday.

Venus will enter that clash as the slight underdog but is more than capable of defying the odds once more. If she does, there is a great chance that she will meet her sister in the semi-final. However, the defending champ must first overcome Caroline Wozniacki in what could be the game of the round.

Elsewhere in the women’s draw, Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska both safely booked their place in tonight’s quarter-final meeting by beating Heather Watson and Sabine Lisicki respectively.

The final quarter-final offers up two surprise packages as Coco Vandeweghe meets Ekatrina Makarova.

Murray Avoids Djokovic Meeting

Thursday’s major talking point was the early exit of Novak Djokovic, who fell to Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets as the 29-year-old powerhouse dropped just four games to advance through to the last eight.

Tsonga’s victory is good news for Britain’s Andy Murray as it means the two-time champion avoids a quarter-final clash with Djokovic. The Scottish star didn’t even have to play his third round match as opponent Richard Gasquet pulled out with an abdominal injury.

The other big quarter-final sees Roger Federer face David Ferrer and the winner will really fancy his chances of lifting the title on Sunday. With either Milos Raonic or Feliciano Lopez awaiting in the last four, both men will already have one eye on the final and we should hopefully see a fascinating quarter-final here.

Grigor Dimitrov and Kevin Anderson complete the quarter-final line-up as the pair do battle for a place against the winner of Murray and Tsonga. It should be another interesting encounter but the Bulgarian should show his authority by progressing to Saturday’s semi-final.

Rogers Cup Quarter-Final Betting

With the favourite, and our pre-tournament pick, Novak Djokovic falling to Tsonga, this event in Toronto has been blown wide open and all eight players will feel that they’ve got a great chance of lifting the trophy.

For that reason alone we will not be backing anybody else to win the outright men’s tournament and are happy to see whether Radwanska can win the WTA event in Montreal.

As far as Thursday’s action is concerned, we are focusing on the match between Anderson and Dimitrov.

It might not be the headline contest but we think there is some real value in Dimitrov straight sets. South African Anderson has been brilliant so far but we think the Bulgarian’s quality will shine through.

We’re also on the following four-fold, which is comprised from the quarter-final clashes in both the ATP and WTA events.