American Taylor Fritz, world number four, disabled Australia’s number one, world top nine, Álex de Miñaur, with his powerful serve, which he won in two sets (6-3 and 6-4) to tie the quarterfinal. tie in Malaga.
The reigning ATP Finals finalist, who only the undisputed Jannik Sinner could dominate in Turin, won the first point for the United States and did so with a clean sweep from the serve. It was impossible for De Minaur to beat the serve of the player from Rancho Sante Fe, California.
Fritz didn’t give his pair a wide berth from a dominant start, he was a machine to throw the ball on serve and also unleashed forehand shots when he was on the ball. Without stridency or spectacularity, but with mathematical efficiency and almost natural force, the Californian was a steamroller to 6-3, in half an hour of play.
De Minaur tries to get up from a direct punch to the jaw. He has always been a competitive Davis Cup player: he has won fifteen of his 22 matches against Australia in the competition since his debut in 2022, and last year he played in the final, losing to current number one Sinner.
In the second leg of the match, the oceanic responded with a break (2-0), but against a man who serves at 220 kilometers per hour and is not number four in the world by chance, it is difficult to distance.
The Spanish-Australian saved three break points to make it 4-3, but didn’t follow through. Fritz took out his claws to deliver another blow, breaking serve in the ninth game and putting the final icing on the cake (6-4) after an hour and ten of the duel.
Earlier, Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis defeated American Ben Shelton with a good dose of suffering by 1-6, 6-4 and 6-7 (14), in two hours and nineteen minutes, after a match that was decided in a painful tiebreaker It reached thirty points.
Shelton, 22, and Kokkinakis, 28 and winner of the last tournament in Sydney on the ATP Challenger Tour, met for the first time at the Martín Carpena pavilion, which did not fill its 10,700 seats but registered a good crowd with three quarters of occupancy.
The tie therefore had to be decided in a doubles match.
Source: La Verdad
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