Frances Tiafoe woke up on Saturday having never reached an ATP World Tour semi-final. Yet the #NextGenATP American will go to sleep tonight after advancing to his first final. How about that for a day? After finishing off his victory against reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion Hyeon Chung on Saturday afternoon at the Delray Beach Open on his eighth match point, the 20-year-old beat 18-year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov 7-5, 6-4 in 71 minutes in the evening to earn the right to play for his first ATP World Tour trophy on Sunday. "It's been a great last couple of weeks," Tiafoe said. "I'm just trying to keep riding this wave and see where it takes me." Tiafoe has been waiting...
Karen Khachanov reached his second ATP World Tour final after beating Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-2 at the Open 13 Provence on Saturday. The World No. 47, competing in his first semi-final of 2018, looked in great form throughout the 74-minute contest, winning 90 per cent of first serve points (26/29) to reach the championship match. Khachanov improved to a 2-0 FedEx ATP Head2Head record over the Czech No. 1, after winning their only previous encounter last season at Roland Garros. “I am happy with my performance, I did everything I should have done today,” said Khachanov. “It is the nicest feeling when you come to the tournament and play until the final… I feel great here.” The ninth seed will...
#NextGenATP American Frances Tiafoe had never advanced to an ATP World Tour quarter-final before last week's New York Open (l. to Anderson). But after finishing off reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion Hyeon Chung 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 at the Delray Beach Open on Saturday, after rain suspended play at 5-3 in the third set on Friday evening, the 20-year-old is into his first semi-final. "The stress level was pretty high today," Tiafoe said. "I'm just going to keep going. I think it's almost better that I play today so I don't have much time to really get a big head or anything... I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a good one." It took Tiafoe eight match points...
Dominic Thiem entered his semi-final at the Rio Open presented by Claro 30-5 on clay since the beginning of last season. Those losses came against Rafael Nadal (3), Novak Djokovic and David Goffin. It didn’t hurt that he was the defending champion in Rio de Janeiro, either, as well as last week’s winner in Buenos Aires. But the Austrian was shocked by eighth seed Fernando Verdasco, who delivered a blistering performance to oust the second seed 6-4, 6-0 on Friday evening. The Spaniard moves into his first ATP World Tour semi-final since 2017 Stockholm as he pursues his first final since losing to Andy Murray last year in Dubai. "I knew that if I wanted to beat a player like...
Karen Khachanov advanced to his first ATP World Tour semi-final in eight months by defeating France’s Julien Benneteau, the 2010 runner-up, 6-4, 6-4 in 84 minutes at the Open 13 Provence in Marseille on Friday. "It was quite a solid match,” said Khachanov. “I didn’t make many first serves in the first couple of games, getting broken in my first service game, but then I got stronger." The 21-year-old Russian, who struck 16 aces past Benneteau (for 35 aces overall in three matches this week), reached the Gerry Weber Open semi-finals (l. to Federer) in June 2017. The last Russian to contest the Marseille final was Yevgeny Kafelnikov, a former No. 1 in the ATP Rankings, who beat Sebastian Grosjean of France...
