Montreal Masters: Arnaldi qualifies for his first Masters 1000 semi-final

Italian Matteo Arnaldi defeated Japanese Kei Nishikori 6-4, 7-5 to reach the semi-finals of the Montreal Masters at Stade IGA on Sunday night.

“I’m pretty tired and with some rain delays and everything, but I’m really happy. I played some good tennis today. I had two tough matches. So I’m really happy how I managed to play and to manage some important moments during matches. So I’m really happy for that, and I’m looking forward to play tomorrow.”

Arnaldi, ranked No 46, will play Russian Andrey Rublev, the No 5 seed, next.

“I saw him playing today. He was playing really good. So it’s going to be a completely different match from Paris where I think I played one of the best tennis I ever played there. He’s going to try to get his revenge, but you know, like I said, now I’m going to try to recover. I played a lot today. Then tomorrow we will think about Andrey, but for sure and I’m hope it’s going to be a really good match.”

Ahead of his victory, the Italian won against American qualifier Mackenzie McDonald (4-6, 6-4, 6-4), Russian Karen Khachanov, the No 16 seed (7-5, 7-5) and Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (4-6, 7-6 (5), 3-0 ret.).

Kei Nishikori beat American Alex Michelsen (3-6, 7-5, 6-4), Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 8 seed (6-4, 6-4) and Portuguese Nuno Borges (6-3, 6-4) in the previous rounds of the Rogers Cup.

Montreal Masters 1000, other last eight results (Stade IGA, hard, USD 6.795.555, most recent results first):

• Sebastian Korda vs. Alexander Zverev
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Hubert Hurkacz
• Andrey Rublev beat Jannik Sinner (1): 6-3, 1-6, 6-2