Having made it all the way to the quarterfinal round at the 2016 Olympic Games, Steve Johnson is certainly on quite a tear at the moment.
Apart from his stellar run in Rio, Johnson has also made it to the quarterfinal stage or better in four of his last five tournaments in the ATP Tour. In one of those tournaments from late June, the Aegon Open in Nottingham, the 26-year-old Californian emerged victorious over Pablo Cuevas for his first-ever ATP Tour-level title. Now Johnson must maintain his competitive streak going, and the Queen City is a great place for him to stay hot before the year ends.
Pablo Cuevas
Speaking of Pablo Cuevas, the Argentinian righty shouldn’t be too discouraged about that loss to Johnson in England because he’s had a far better 2016 campaign than the American. Cuevas already has two titles under his belt this year (both Brazilian tournaments that were held in Rio and Sao Paolo back in February) and two other final-round appearances as well (Nottingham and Hamburg).
Perhaps Cuevas will have also some of the same magic that his fellow countryman Juan Martin Del Potro had in Rio this past week to vault him towards a third win this season. Del Potro unexpectedly won silver for men’s singles tennis at the Olympics by defeating Rafael Nadal in the semis before falling to Andy Murray in the gold medal match.
Alexandr Dolgopolov
It’s been an up-and-down season for Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov, but a 17-14 record thus far proves that he can hang in tough with the rest of the ATP Tour’s top contenders. The World No. 38 has made it to five quarterfinal rounds out of the 14 tournaments he’s participated in, and a return to Cincy might give him more than just another final-eight appearance.
Dolgopolov was a semifinalist in last year’s installment of the Western & Southern Open, having been ousted from the tournament by Novak Djokovic but not before taking the world’s best tennis player to the limit in three sets. With no Djokovic in the tournament this year, Dolgopolov could very well make a deep run in Ohio and possibly nab his first win of the season at last.
