Querrey Beats Fritz To Reach Acapulco Semifinals
American Sam Querrey fought back from a set down to beat compatriot Taylor Fritz on Thursday, defeating the teenager 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Abierto Mexicano Telcel semifinals in Acapulco, Mexico.
Playing in just the second ATP quarterfinal of his career, Fritz came out firing in this one. He won 78 percent of his first serve points and broke twice in three chances to roll to the first set victory.
But Querrey took over from there. He wouldn’t surrender a break point chance in either of the final two sets while securing one break of his own in each set to complete the comeback and reach the final four in Mexico.
“I didn’t play my best [in the] first set and he came out firing,” said Querrey. “Second set, I just slowed down and made him play. Once I got a break midway through I relaxed a little bit and was able to settle into the match.”
In the semifinals, Querrey will square off with fourth-seed Dominic Thiem of Austria. Thiem dismissed 2014 champion and seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov 7-5, 6-2 on Thursday to punch his ticket to the semis.
In the first meeting between these two, Thiem secured a late break to go up 6-5 in the opening set and proceeded to serve it out. In the second, Thiem notched a break in the opening game and another break at 4-2 allowed him to serve out the set and the match.
“Breaking him in the first game of the second set was maybe the deciding moment of this match,” said Thiem. “The key of this match was to win the first set. I started to play better and better and the momentum swung to my side.”
The other semifinal in Acapulco will see fifth-seed Bernard Tomic take on Alexandr Dolgopolov.
On the women’s side, two Americans will be battling for spots in the final on Friday.
Second-seed Sloane Stephens takes on eighth-seeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer, while Christina McHale will face Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova in the two women’s singles semifinals.
