Jannik Sinner clinched a spot in the semis of the Nitto ATP Finals when Taylor Fritz won a set against Alex de Minaur on Thursday afternoon. Sinner returned the favor and sent Fritz into the semis when he won a set against Daniil Medvedev in the nightcap.
With a 1-1 record–the same as Medvedev–through two matches in Turin, Fritz really needed another win in order to maximize his chances of semifinal qualification. That is exactly what the 27-year-old American got, overcoming De Minaur 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
“It’s tough, because even though I won the match I feel like there wasn’t necessarily any moment when I feel like I had a repeatable way to win from the baseline, to be honest,” Fritz explained. “He was all over me. What I did a great job of was towards the end of the second set, I really started to find my serve. I was serving much better and that allowed me to just stay with it and create more pressure on his service games.
“When I wasn’t making the first serves, he was just killing me from the baseline, so it just gave me a little bit of comfort to just stay in the match and not be under so much pressure all the time. I was able to just come up with some good shots at some good times, play off some of his mistakes, but it was still incredibly tough.”
As the Group Ilie Nastase runner-up, Fritz will face the winner of Group John Newcombe on Saturday. Sinner awaits the Newcombe runner-up.
Fritz is now 2-for-2 in semifinals qualification at the year-end championship. The 2024 U.S. Open runner-up also got out of the round-robin stage in 2022 with a 2-1 record before falling to Novak Djokovic 7-6(5), 7-6(6). Sinner advanced to the last four in 2023 and beat Medvedev before losing to Djokovic in the title match.
nice one, Fritz