TURIN: Taylor Fritz closed in on the last four of the ATP Finals on Thursday after coming from behind to beat Alex De Minaur 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
American Fritz came through an entertaining match in Turin to send home Finals debutant De Minaur, who by winning a set handed Jannik Sinner a semi-finals spot.
Sinner heads into his last match in the Ilie Nastase Group against Daniil Medvedev knowing that he is through no matter what, with a win ensuring him of top spot.
Fritz meanwhile will join Sinner in the knockout stage as long as the world number one wins at least one set in front of his home fans and seventh seed De Minaur goes home without winning a single match on his tournament debut.
“If I don’t get through it’s going to be tough because I did play two very good matches, won both those matches and lost to the best player in the world so If I don’t make it though it’s tough,” said Fritz.
“But if that happens I’m happy with my week and I leave with my head held high. Yeah, I’ll definitely be checking the score!”
The two played some entertaining tennis in the opening set, including a 30-shot rally which De Minaur won with a passing shot while Fritz walked back to the baseline with a wry smile.
De Minaur converted the all-important break at 5-5 and served for the set, sealing it with an ace, which also confirmed world number one Sinner as the first semi-finalist.
De Minaur, however, needed to win the second set comfortably to stand a chance of advancing to the semi-finals and the Australian saw his slim hopes of going through evaporate when Fritz levelled the score at one set apiece.
That was all the motivation a fired-up Fritz needed as he raced into a 4-1 lead to gain control of the decider while De Minaur crumbled. At 5-3, Fritz had three match points and took the contest with an ace.
In Wednesday’s late match in the John Newcombe group, two-times former champion Alexander Zverev, the world number two, underlined his superb late-season form to beat Norway’s Casper Ruud 7-6(3), 6-3 for his second victory of the week.
Zverev was pushed hard by Ruud but turned up the heat in the first-set tiebreak, banging down a couple of aces to consolidate a mini-break on the way to taking the opener.
Ruud, who reached the final in 2022, could hardly have served any better, missing only nine first serves all match.
But a couple of errors when he served at 3-4 in the second set proved costly as Zverev got the decisive break.
Zverev then finished it off to chalk up his Tour-leading 68th match win of the year.
“I’m hitting my spots well (on serve) and the speed is maybe a bit up on last week,” Zverev told Sky Sports. “Today’s match was better than the first match from the baseline.”
Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2024
