By Alberto Amalfi | Thursday, April 20, 2023
No. 2-seeded Taylor Fritz fought back from a set down to advance to his seventh straight quarterfinal on the red clay of Munich.
Photo credit: Matthew Calvis
Heavy cold conditions created a challenging red path in Munich.
It sent seeds in different directions.
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In a clash of former junior world No. 1 players, Taylor Fritz overcame a slow start dispatching Marton Fucsovics 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 to reach the Munich quarterfinals in his tournament debut.
It is the seventh straight quarterfinal for Fritz, who improved to 24-7 on the season.
The second-seeded Fritz drew on his superior firepower to turn today's match around.
Fritz fired nine aces, won 35 of 42 first-serve points and faced only one break point over the final two sets of a two-hour victory.
World No. 10 Fritz will face either eighth-seeded Swiss Marc-Andrea Huesler or 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem for a spot in Saturday's semifinals.
Huesler currently leads Thiem 7-5, 3-3 in a match suspended due to darkness after one hour and 33 minutes. That match will resume tomorrow with the winner facing Fritz.
Top-seeded Holger Rune launched his Munich title defense with a bang. Rune rolled German wild card Yannick Hanfmann 6-3, 6-4.
On Sunday, Rune squandered a 4-1 third-set lead in the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters final dropping six of the last seven games to Andrey Rublev, who rallied for his maiden Masters 1000 crown.
Today, Rune set about scraping off the scar tissue. Rune won 29 of 36 first-serve points and faced only two break points to set up a quarterfinal vs. talented Chilean Cristian Garin.
Playing all-court tennis, Garin stopped sixth-seeded Lorenzo Sonego 6-3, 7-6(3).
Olympic gold-medal champion Alexander Zverev failed to survive the first hurdle.
Australian Christopher O'Connell saved five of seven break points toppling Zverev 7-6(2), 6-4 in a one hour, 56-minute baseline battle.
World No. 82 O'Connell is into his third quarterfinal of the season where he will play Italian Flavio Cobolli.
The third-seeded Zverev, who squandered two match points losing to Daniil Medvedev in Monte-Carlo last week, has reached just one quarterfinal in eight tournaments this season. That came with his semifinal run in Dubai last month.
It was a good day for Americans as Marcos Giron joined Fritz in the final eight. Giron converted five of 15 break points rallying past Swiss qualifier Alexander Ritschard 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.