Clashes between Czech Tomas Macchac and Frenchman Ugo Humbert and Denmark’s Holger Rune and Frenchman Arthur Fillss shape the semi-finals of the Japan Openof the ATP 500 category and played on hard courts in Tokyo.
Tomas Machac started by sealing his pass, beating American Alex Michelsen 7-6 6-3which placed in the eight best despite coming from the previous one. It was a very close contest with only three service breaks, two of them in the first two games and the remaining one in the eighth game of the second set. In between, to decide the first round, a tie break took place in which the Czech was more superior (7-2).
The next match had less history, pitting Ugo Humbert against Jack Draper.. After a very close first set with five breaks of service, the last of them for the final 7-5 in favor of the Frenchman, in the third game of the second act the Briton ended the rivalry due to injury after receiving treatment for the deficiency in comfort in the part of the stomach.
In Rune’s case, he had to return to a demanding face-to-face match against local Kei Nishikoriinvited by the tournament. After losing the first set 6-3 when serving his first serve of the day; Nordic managed to win 6-2 in the second, needing up to four set points.
In the third, after giving up his serve in the seventh game and falling in the next game, he was forced to save a match point in the ninth. He finally tied the tenth with a break and ended up winning 7-5 to certify his pass.
This was not the only one that was decided in three sets, because the same thing happened between the American Ben Shelton, eighth seed, and the Frenchman, Arthur Fils.. The first set went to the Frenchman (7-5), who needed up to eight break points to break his rival’s serve in the eleventh game.
He had a chance to turn the match in his favor in the second set, starting with breaking Shelton’s serve again. However, he missed two match points for another 7-5 and ended up losing in the tie break. This forced a third and final set, which also had to be decided in sudden death, where Fils ended up winning 7-6 (2) to advance to the semifinals.
Source: La Verdad
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