American second seed Taylor Fritz secured a place in the semi-finals of the Canadian Open in Toronto with a 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Russian sixth seed Andrey Rublev.
Fritz, a Wimbledon semi-finalist last month, came out firing and broke Rublev in his first return game, winning six consecutive points early in the match. The 27-year-old then maintained control with a dominant service display throughout the opening set.
Fritz looked set to seal a straightforward win when he served for the match at 5-4 in the second. Rublev, however, launched a late challenge, saving a match point and converting his fourth break opportunity to level the set before pushing it to a tiebreak.
Despite the pressure, Fritz regained composure in the breaker to close out the match and book his spot in the final four.
“That whole game was so shaky for me,” Fritz admitted afterwards. “It’s weird because he was holding easy, I was holding easy. It felt so like calm and chill and all of a sudden I’m serving to be in the semis, the pressure of the game came out of nowhere. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, it was a tight game. My brain kind of turned off. The only thing you can do is come back and win the set. I would be a lot more upset about what happened in the game if I lose the match. Winning makes it feel not as bad.”
Fritz will next face fellow American Ben Shelton, the fourth seed, who defeated Australian ninth seed Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-4 to reach his first career Masters 1000 semi-final.