At the Mutua Madrid Open on Wednesday, Taylor Fritz experienced double happiness as he won his 250th match at the tour level and advanced to his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final of the year.
In one hour and forty-six minutes in the Spanish capital, the World No. 13 won a hard-fought 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Argentine Francisco Cerundolo.
“I returned really well in the first set, put a lot of balls in play,” Fritz stated. “To be honest he was making some mistakes so it made me look a lot better and I was finding some balls to attack on for sure. The second set and third set, I feel he got a lot more solid. He was not giving me anything for free and it was really hard to hit through him and find balls to attack on. He was getting the backhand through the court.
“It was tough to look for forehands. It was really tough from the ground but I just had to hang in the match with my serve and fight through some points even though I didn’t feel super comfortable. I took my chance when I got it.”
In the first set at Manolo Santana Stadium, the American dominated and won 28 minutes without facing a break point. In the eighth game of the third set, Fritz took the vital break in a closely contested match after dropping the second set and went on to win by holding service.
Avenging his 2023 Roland Garros third-round loss, the 26-year-old leveled the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 1-1 with aggressive hitting and superior consistency during extended exchanges.
Fritz remarked of the circumstances, “The bounces are still very high, so it works great for my forehand,” “I can get it up on people and set it up to be aggressive on people. It helps my serve. I felt it was slow tonight. It was my first match at night and felt like a different tournament that I had been playing. The day conditions are great for me to serve and attack.”
Fritz has now advanced to the ATP Masters 1000 semifinals four times in a row, with his 2022 Indian Wells title run serving as the highlight. Next up for him is seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev.
Fritz made it to the final match in Munich last month, demonstrating his remarkable clay-court performance this season. In the Spanish city, the 12th seed, who is vying for his first tour-level trophy on the surface, has also defeated Hubert Hurkacz and Sebastian Baez.
Fritz is the first American guy to make it to the Madrid semifinals since Robby Ginepri did so in 2005, and only the third overall. In 2002, Andre Agassi won the title but was eliminated in the final four.
Cerundolo was attempting to make it to his second ATP Masters 1000 semifinal following Miami in 2022 and his tenth tour-level semifinal. For his biggest victory of the year, the No. 21 PIF ATP Rankings defeated World No. 5 Alexander Zverev in the fourth round.
