Exactly 30 days away from their Wimbledon five-set thriller, Taylor Fritz fought such theatrics in a rematch against Gabriel Diallo at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers on Friday. Fritz, second in Toronto, drove the last remaining Canadian 6-4, 6-2.
With his second ATP Masters 1000 Kroon and only since his dream run in Indian Wells in 2022, Fritz seemed more comfortable in his second game of the week than his opener, after which he said: “Even in practice I had so hard to literally place the ball in court”.
The 27-year-old broke 6’8 ”Diallo’s Serve to Love in the Opening Game of the Match and in the second set earned his first of two breaks on 1-1 despite finding 0/40 that game. Keep the benefit in the Forehand to Forehand meetings, Fritz needed only 75 minutes to continue.
“I thought it was really important not to let him come back. [If] He gets a break back, he is fired with the crowd, momentum shifts. I felt that a lot could have changed if I had shown a service game, “said Fritz, who only dropped three points behind his first serve (23/26).” Even the games in which I did not serve my best, I felt that I had supported it really well from the baseline, so I am happy with that. ”
The number 4 player in the PIF ATP ranking, Fritz is now 34-13 of the season, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, emphasized by triumphs during the grass events in Stuttgart and Eastbourne. Fritz tries to complete the set of quarterfinals at all nine ATP Masters 1000 events for fourteen days.
The next one for Fritz is 19th seed Jiri Lehecka, the Czech California 3-0 in their Lexus ATP Head2head series. Sunday marks their first meeting since 2023. Lehecka passed the 15th seed Arthur Fils 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to move forward.
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