2. Monfils had a much more difficult time in his first-round match. The No. 39-ranked Frenchman had to battle back from 5-2 down in the third set—and save a match point down 5-3—to edge Horacio Zeballos in two hours and 19 minutes, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5. And that match was just yesterday, too.
3. Cilic is going for his third quarterfinal of the year, Monfils his fourth. Cilic has already been a semifinalist in Pune (falling to Gilles Simon) and a finalist at the Australian Open, his second final in the last three Grand Slams (he lost to Roger Federer in both the Wimbledon and Aussie Open finals).
Monfils, meanwhile, won his seventh ATP tour title in Doha in the first week of the year and made the quarterfinals of Quito and semifinals of Buenos Aires in the last two weeks—both on clay.
His only early loss this year came against Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Australian Open.
4. Monfils has beaten Top 3 players before—six times. That includes one win over a No. 1 (Rafael Nadal at Doha in 2009), four wins over No. 2s (Federer at Paris in 2010, Nadal at Doha in 2012, Federer in Davis Cup in 2014 and Federer again at Monte Carlo in 2015) and one win over a No. 3 (Roddick at Portschach all the way back in 2007). Three of those six Top 3 wins came on clay.
5. Monfils has also beaten Cilic in both of their previous meetings. Neither match was easy by any means, though—Monfils prevailed in the quarterfinals of the Masters 1000 tournament in Paris in 2009, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, and in the third round of the Olympics right here in Rio in 2016, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-4.
