It will be an all-American showdown when Jack Sock and Steve Johnson collide in a surprising quarterfinal matchup on Friday. They are coming off respective huge wins over Richard Gasquet and Grigor Dimitrov.
Jack Sock and Steve Johnson will be going head-to-head for the sixth time in their careers and for the third time at the ATP level when they battle for a semifinal spot at the Citi Open on Friday.
Sock has won both of their previous ATP encounters; 7-6(5), 7-6(5) at the 2012 Atlanta event and 7-5, 6-4, 6-2 last season at Roland Garros. The overall series stands at 3-2 in Sock’s favor, as Johnson picked up a pair of victories on the Challenger circuit. Sock is 2-0 at Johnson’s expense on outdoor hard courts and 4-0 in those sets (including three in tiebreakers).
This is Johnson’s second consecutive trip to the Washington, D.C. quarterfinals. The 55th-ranked American’s latest run includes a straight-set scalp of Lukas Lacko and three-set upsets of Bernard Tomic and Grigor Dimitrov.
Sock started the 2015 campaign late due to injury, so he does not have quite as many match victories (19) as Johnson (24). But both Americans are in stellar form and Sock is hoping to make this the fourth tournament of the 2015 campaign in which he has won at least three matches. The world No. 37 opened with a defeat of Ruben Bemelmans before coming back from a set and a break down to stun Richard Gasquet 6-7(4), 7-6(5), 6-4 on Thursday night.
“It should be a good battle,” Sock said of his upcoming quarterfinal. “We’ve played a few times now and each won a couple. He’s playing some pretty good tennis now; he’s had some pretty consistent results and moved up the rankings. I think especially on a surface like this and in the U.S., it should be a fun match. I’m just happy there’s two Americans advancing.”
This will be a matchup of big serves and forehands. Ironically, that means it could all come down to the backhand side. Sock has a slight edge in that department even though both men are rapidly improving that particular shot.
“It was a side people would go to and hurt me with,” the 22-year-old said of his backhand. “I’m showing that’s not the case anymore. I think it’s more just trust. A lot of people would talk about my serve and my forehand. I run around a lot of backhands still but where I might have got a little tentative before, I trust it and go for it.”
Pick: Sock in 3
