ATP: German late night double strike by Gojowczyk and Kohlschreiber in Rome

Philipp Kohlschreiber and Peter Gojowczyk have reached the round of 16 of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Rome: The two German top players each won their Tuesday evening matches in two sets.

Professional tennis player Peter Gojowczyk has reached the eighth-finals of a Masters tournament for the first time and will be among the top 50 in the world rankings for the first time next Monday. The 28-year-old from Munich beat Italian wild card player Lorenzo Sonego 6:3 and 6:4 in the second round of the sand court tournament in Foro Italico.

“I train hard, and success comes at some point. I’m enjoying the moment. Today I managed to decide important situations for myself,” said Gojowczyk.

Gojowczyk is at least 49th in the next ranking. The way further up should be difficult, at least in Rome. In the round of the last 16, either the sixth seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem or the Italian Fabio Fognini will be waiting.

Thiem was only stopped by Alexander Zverev from Hamburg in the final of the Madrid Masters last Sunday. Before that, Thiem had stopped Rafael Nadal’s triumphant progress on sand and at the same time overthrown the Spaniard from first place in the world rankings.

Philipp Kohlschreiber had started a few minutes after Gojowczyk, but proved to be the clearly better player in his duel with Jack Sock right from the start. Kohlschreiber could not see the efforts of the more than three-hour match against Karen Khachanov on Monday, the native of Augsburg moving light-footed over the Pietrangeli.

After 79 minutes the German number two had sealed the 6:4, 6:3 victory with a forehand ball on the baseline.

Kohlschreiber could now face Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 16, as he did in Monte Carlo. The Bulgarian will play Kei Nishikori on Wednesday. In the Principality, Kohlschreiber had to sail after three hard sets.

Here the single tableau in Rome