When fifth-seeded Marin Cilic lost Friday afternoon to 29th-seeded Diego Schwartzman, players took notice of who was — and who was not — left around them in the draw.
“Everyone was watching that in the locker room,” Sam Querrey, the No. 17 seed, said. “And it felt a little open even before he beat him.”
Second-seeded Andy Murray withdrew from the bottom half of the draw with a lingering hip injury before the tournament began. Fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev lost in the second round, as did eighth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
With the 2014 U.S. Open champion Cilic out, Querrey became the lone man left in the bottom half of the draw who has reached even a Grand Slam semifinal, which he did for the first time at Wimbledon this year.