Taylor Fritz got a revenge of sorts when he saved a match point to beat fellow American Ben Shelton in a dramatic quarter-final at the Halle grass court tournament on Friday.
Fritz prevailed 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-3) in 2 hours 49 minutes in sweltering conditions, saving the match point at 7-6 in the second set tie-break.
Fritz fired 24 aces and saved four break points while Shelton faced no break point and had 15 aces.
Fritz won six days after losing the Stuttgart final against leftie Shelton. He also lost the Dallas final in February against Shelton and trails their series 3-2.
“I don’t know if I could have taken losing another one of those to Ben,” Fritz was quoted by the ATP as saying on-court.
“When I say that, I mean just doing everything but winning the match, because the funny thing about this one is he had the chances. In the other two he won, I probably had the better chances. I kind of just had it in my head capitalising on the big chances and I am happy to get through that.”
The other quarter-finals later Friday are top seeded French Open champion Alexander Zverev v Raphaël Collignon, second seed Felix Auger-Alliasime v Frances Tiafoe and fourth seed Daniil Medvedev v Daniel Altmaier.
