Boss ambassador Taylor Fritz was working for the weekend in Turin today.
Showing strong closing power, Fritz vanquished the Demon to move closer to an ATP Finals semifinal return.
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Rocketing his sixth ace down the middle, Fritz wrapped a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 comeback conquest of nemesis Alex de Minaur in the first three-set singles match of the week.
World No. 1 Jannik Sinner qualified for Saturday’s semifinals by virtue of de Minaur winning the opening set today.
Now, Fritz awaits his fate based on the outcome of tonight’s match between home hero Sinner and Daniil Medvedev.
If Sinner wins one set tonight, then Fritz will secure a semifinal spot for the second straight year and join Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick as the third American to reach multiple ATP Finals semifinals since 2000.
The fourth-seeded Medvedev, who fell to Fritz in his round-robin opener, can only book a semifinal spot by sweeping Sinner in straight sets in tonight’s final round-robin match of Ilie Nastase Group play.
Fritz served his best when he needed it most, serving 86 percent and pumping five of his six aces in the final set that saw him win 21 of 28 serve points in the final set. Fritz finished with a 2-1 record in round-robin play with his lone loss coming to Sinner.
“I think a big win was finding my serve at the end of the second just allowed me to not feel so much pressure every service game,” Fritz told Tennis Channel’s Prakash Amritraj afterward. “Because from the ground, he was all over me. He was playing great. It just felt like what he to do to win a point was so much easier than what I had to do to win a point.
“So finding my serve to kind of keep me in it and then just being able to come up with some big shots and play off some of the mistakes he made on his serve really made the difference. It’s an incredibly frustrating match where I’m losing so many baseline rallies where I feel like I can’t do anything, I wouldn’t do anything different. So I did have to mentally persevere a lot to get through it.”
Though Fritz looked reluctant at the outset to move forward against the precise counter-strikes of de Minaur, the American No. 1 won 15 of 18 trips to net , asserting his aggression in the final set. Fritz beat de Minaur for the fourth time in nine meetings scoring his first hard-court win over the Aussie since 2022 Indian Wells.
“I think I’ve always been good at finding ways to get out of these matches and to figure it out,” Fritz said. “The key thing always is I just have to serve better in a lot of these situations because it can keep me in these matches and buy me time to see if my opponent’s level can drop for a game or I can make something crazy happen on a return game.
“The match is always reachable if I can just serve well and keep myself in it until that moment.”
Though he was eliminated from semifinal contention before stepping on court, de Minaur still had a lot on the line today.
In his Turin debut, the Demon was playing for his 250th career victory, 200 ranking points, $396,500 in prize money for a round-robin victory and to become the first Aussie man to score a singles win at the ATP Finals since his Davis Cup captain, Lleyton Hewitt, defeated rival Andy Roddick in the 2004 semifinals.
Sharp on serve, Fritz stamped two love holds winning 12 of his first 13 service points in taking a 3-2 lead.
"It's a good matchup I think whenever we play each other. It's always a tough battle no matter where we play," de Minaur said. "We've played from a very young age. He's got his weapons, and I've got my weapons.
"Certain times, like at the start of the year or even the first two sets today, I feel comfortable with certain patterns on the court. I feel like I can expose some of his weaknesses.
"Again, it's always a tough matchup because he's got that firepower and the serve - the serve that ultimately gets him out of trouble so often. That's what makes it so difficult to beat him, as well."
Deadlocked at 3-all, 30-all, the pair lit up the arena with a frenzied 30-shot rally. Moving forward Fritz dabbed a fine drop volley, but de Minaur was quick off the mark and shoveled a forehand pass into the corner for the first break point.
A relentless de Minaur drew a floated forehand breaking for 4-3.
Hitting deep drives, Fritz amped up the pace drawing successive errors breaking back to even after eight games. Fritz flashed through eight of nine points transforming that 3-4 deficit to a 5-4 lead in a matter of minutes.
In another plot twist, de Minaur wrenched away momentum at the lead.
Running down everything Fritz fired at him, de Minaur thwarted the American with his flat counterstrikes. Fritz didn’t trust his volley enough to try to move forward as de Minaur extended points and provoked errors breaking again for 6-5.
The ninth-ranked Aussie took pace off his first serve sliding a slice ace out wide to serve out the first set at 15. De Minaur won 12 of the final 15 points of the 47-minute opener.
The 6’5” Fritz was hitting heavier, but de Minaur was hitting it earlier. The Aussie shifted speeds shrewdly sometimes following up a no-pace slice backhand with a flatter forehand into the corner. That arrhythmical approach can be unsettling.
Eighty minutes into the match, de Minaur earned a break point. Fritz slammed a serve down the T to deny it. Though he was net averse in the first set, Fritz carved out a challenging drop volley winner holding for 4-3.
De Minaur displayed his versatility, imposing a love hold in the eighth game that saw him fire his sixth ace, soar for a smash down the line and drip a drop shot winner. By then, de Minaur had won 16 of 17 points played on his serve in the second set.
None of that fazed Fritz, who was hitting dictating drives earning triple set point on de Minaur’s serve in the 10th game.
De Minaur saved the first two set points but flew a forehand long on the third as Fritz broke to force a final set after 93 minutes.
Swinging freely amid third-set pressure, Fritz hit some of his most damaging forehands.
Dancing around his backhand, Fritz took a shin-high ball and ripped a forehand winner down the line. That strike was a prelude to a diagonal forehand dart that helped him break for 3-1.
Facing break point in the fifth game, Fritz lanced the line with his fourth ace then threw down heavy first serves holding for 4-1.
Fritz did the winning and now comes the waiting.
“I’m really happy with how I played,” Fritz said. “If I win two of the matches in my group and I lose to the person who is the best player in the world right now and I don’t make it out of the group, I’ll leave here with my head held high.
“So it is what it is.”