wolf wrote:

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SF: Jack Draper WR 40 vs (LL) Soonwoo Kwon (KOR) WR 84

Jack beat Kwon 6-1 6-2 in R1 last week.

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 Kwon appears to be hot having ripped past Ymer for the loss of just 3 games. Hopefully Jack will still do the biz though. 

SF: (3) Ivan Dodig & Austin Krajicek (CRO/USA) CR 21 (11+10) defeated (1) Wesley Koolhof (NED) & Neal Skupski CR 2 (1+1) by 6-2 7-6(4)

SF: (2) Marcelo Arévalo & Jean-Julien Rojer (ESA/NED) CR 12 (6+6) defeated (4) Lloyd Glasspool & Harri Heliövaara (FIN) CR 21 (12+9) by walkover

Presumably Neal and Wes retain top seeding for the AO though

JonH comes home wrote:

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Presumably Neal and Wes retain top seeding for the AO though

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Yes the draw comes out Sunday morning before new rankings come out. 

I hadnt looked at Kwons progress - he lost to Machac in qualies here, then played the same player in opening round and beat him second time of asking and now in the semis .

Good luck to the guy!

I also like the Lucky Loser!  If Kwon goes on to win the tournament, it won't be the first an LL has gone on to win a tournament.  But here is a question for a tennis nerd who has nothing to do today:  Has an LL ever won a tournament where he (or she) has beaten the player he lost to in qualies?

It is rare for a lucky loser to win an ATP or WTA tournament; Heinz Gunthardt did it in 1978 (at Springfield), Bill Scanlon in 1978 (at Maui),[1] Francisco Clavet in 1990 in Hilversum, Christian Miniussi in 1991 in São Paulo, Sergiy Stakhovsky in 2008 in Zagreb, Rajeev Ram in 2009 in Newport, Andrey Rublev in 2017 in Umag, Leonardo Mayer in the following week in 2017 in Hamburg and Marco Cecchinato at the Hungarian Open in 2018.[2] In total, nine men have done it since 1978.[3] Three men's doubles teams have won a tournament as lucky losers.[4]

In March 1980, Kay McDaniel won a WTA minor league title in Atlanta as a lucky loser,[5] but the WTA recognizes Andrea Jaeger as the first lucky loser to win a WTA title, in Las Vegas in 1980.[6] Olga Danilovi won a WTA event as a lucky loser in Moscow in 2018, where some sources have claimed she is the first women to win a main tour WTA singles title as a lucky loser.[7] In October 2019, Coco Gauff defeated Jeena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 at the Upper Austria Ladies Linz tournament in Austria at the age of 15 to become the third woman to accomplish the feat.[8]

Vitalia Diatchenko joined the list of such winners when triumphing in the inaugural WTA 125K series tournament in Angers in 2021, although this is not regarded as a full WTA title. Not only did she win the title as a Lucky Loser, but she came back from a set and 0-4 down in the second round to defeat Daniela Vismane, the player who had beaten her in the final qualifying round.[9]

Lucky losers who have reached the finals of a tennis tournament and lost include Andreas Haider-Maurer, who reached the final in 2010 Vienna before losing to top-seeded Jürgen Melzer, Marcel Granollers who lost against David Ferrer in 2010 Valencia, and Pablo Cuevas, beaten in the 2019 Estoril Open final by Stefanos Tsitsipas. Cuevas had lost to Salvatore Caruso in the second round of qualifying, but beat him when they met again in the first round proper. On the women's side, Melinda Czink reached the final of the 2005 Canberra International but lost to Ana Ivanovic, who had also defeated Czink in the final round of qualifying.[10] In 2012, Coco Vandeweghe finished runner-up to Serena Williams at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford.