Fritz denies De Minaur final flourish

Taylor Fritz took the long way round but finished strong en route to his second victory at the 2024 Nitto ATP Finals.

The American on Thursday overcame Alex de Minaur 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 in Turin to boost his chances of reaching the semi-finals at the prestigious season finale for the second time. After a strong start from De Minaur, Fritz prevailed after two hours, eight minutes in the first singles match of the week to go to three sets at Inalpi Arena.

Top tier Taylor ?

No. 5 seed @Taylor_Fritz97 comes from a set down to defeat de Minaur and record his second victory in the Ilie Nastase Group!#NittoATPFinals pic.twitter.com/YOYn1UFK6r

“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,” said Fritz. “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.”

Fritz eliminated event debutant De Minaur with his comeback victory, but he must wait for Thursday’s evening’s clash between Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev to find out if he will progress further. If Medvedev wins in straight sets against Sinner, he will join the World No. 1 in the semi-finals. If he wins in three sets or loses, Sinner and Fritz will advance.

“I think a lot of us are pretty beat up,” said Fritz, when asked how he felt physically after his group-stage campaign in Turin. “But if I’m in the semis of the [Nitto ATP Finals], I’ve got energy to give.”

Fritz had to dig deep to stick with De Minaur, who produced his best tennis of the week so far for the first set and a half. As well as being typically resilient in long rallies, the Australian also showcased plenty of power and he outhit Fritz by 12 winners to seven en route to the opening set.

The big-serving Fritz’s struggles to shake off De Minaur on serve were typified by the fact that he did not land an ace until the seventh game of the second set. That game proved to be decisive in swinging the match the American’s way, however. He saved a break point at 40/Ad and then made his move on return in the 10th game, when he broke De Minaur’s serve to clinch the set.

From there, Fritz maintained his newfound momentum and he rarely looked like letting slip his lead after he broke De Minaur’s serve again for 3-1 in the deciding set. He appeared to be striking the ball more freely than he had in the opening stages of the match and at 5-3 the fifth seed served out the match emphatically to love to improve to 4-5 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series.

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Fritz finished the match having converted three of six break points he earned, according to Infosys ATP Stats. The 27-year-old, who has lifted ATP Tour titles in Delray Beach and Eastbourne this season, is now 51-22 for the year.

Despite his third defeat of the week, De Minaur can reflect on an impressive effort in the final match of his Nitto ATP Finals debut campaign. Barring a late call up to Australia’s team for next week’s Davis Cup Final 8, he will end the 2024 season with a 47-18 record and with a year-end personal-best PIF ATP Ranking of No. 9.

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