Fittingly, in a season when consistency has been his hallmark, Taylor Fritz is through to the semi-finals of a clay-court Masters event for the first time.
Better known for his thunderbolt serve and power off the ground than for the more artful point construction normally associated with the surface, Fritz, the American world No 10, is rapidly learning to translate his game to the red dirt, as he demonstrated with an emphatic 6-2, 6-4 victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas, the double defending champion, at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Fritz, who becomes the first American to reach the last four on the Cote d’Azur since Vince Spadea in 2003, dominated the second seed from the outset, reeling off the first four games in just 17 minutes and calmly reasserting his authority when Tsitsipas belatedly roused himself to claim his only break of the match.
The Greek, who has struggled with a shoulder injury since losing to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open, was far from his fluent best. He shanked a succession of forehands, landed barely half his first serves, and won only 45% of the points behind his second delivery. As the title slipped away, his dismay was evident in the increasingly bewildered looks he cast towards his box. Yet that should take nothing away from Fritz, who remained true to his attacking instincts while making subtle tactical adjustments to prevent Tsitsipas from commanding the baseline exchanges.
“There are some people where the game plan is just as simple as make sure I’m serving well and I’m being aggressive, which is normally always my game plan, and then there are some matches where it gets a little bit more specific,” said Fritz, who will face former finalist Andrey Rublev, a 6-1, 7-6 (7-5) winner over Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff, for a place in the final.
“Stef, for example, he’s super dangerous when he’s running around, he’s in that backhand corner and he’s controlling with his forehand. So a big key was going big [with the] backhand [down the] line and stuff like that, to get him out of that corner.
“[It’s] probably a shot I wouldn’t normally hit so much. I love to go backhand cross with people, but if I did it with him, he would get around and he would be able to dictate.”
Fritz’s performance was all the more impressive for the fact that he struggled to hit the high notes on serve at times, particularly in the first set, where he landed just 44% of his first deliveries. His self-belief never wavered, though, even when Tsitsipas crushed a forehand winner to convert his only break point of the match, levelling the second set at four games apiece. Helped on his way by a dismal service game from Tsitsipas, who promptly produced a trio of forehand errors to concede a second successive break, Fritz responded with his best service game of the afternoon, pounding down four first deliveries as he sealed victory with an ace.
For Tsitsipas, it was the latest chapter in what has been a frustrating period.
“This injury on my shoulder didn’t really give me opportunity to build up a momentum and rhythm,” said Tsitsipas. “I have been thinking about it, how I could have gained points playing in Acapulco, perhaps playing healthy in Indian Wells and Miami [where he won just one of his three matches].
“These are the tour tournaments that I was actually aiming for, because these are big tournaments, they can give you a lot of points to add to your confidence and keep building on the race to Turin, which is important to me.”
Tsitsipas was followed out of the tournament by Daniil Medvedev, the third seed, who was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by Holger Rune, the Danish sixth seed. Medvedev, who played late into the night to defeat Alexander Zverev on Thursday, saving two match points along the way, conceded that fatigue may have contributed to a subdued performance while reserving warm praise for Rune’s performance.
“Maybe, but also Holger played very good,” said Medvedev. “You can never know. That’s tennis. Sometimes you play a night match and you have to be ready for the next one, so I’m definitely not going to complain about this.”
One person who did complain was Zverev, who branded the Russian “one of the most unfair players in the world” after the Russian took a toilet break, approved by the chair umpire, midway through the deciding set. Medvedev did not mince his words when asked about the German’s comments.
“Toilet? Well, I wanted to pee. What does he want me to do?
“Sascha is living in his own world,” said Medvedev, before adding with a smile: “I already had like five players in the locker room coming to me and saying, ‘Come on, Daniil, why are you so unfair?’
“Sascha, when he loses, we can find maybe 25 interviews of him where he does say some strange things.
“When he says someone is not fair play, you’re like, ‘OK, great. Look at yourself in the mirror.’”
Rune, meanwhile, will face Jannik Sinner in the last four after the seventh seed saw off Lorenzo Musetti, conqueror of Djokovic the previous afternoon, 6-2, 6-2.
“Whoever can take the baseline is probably going to be the one who has more chance,” said Rune. “Sinner is a big hitter, and if he gets the time to hit the ball, he’s very dangerous. So I’m going to try and not let him do that.”
With Fritz awaiting, Rublev will no doubt be thinking much the same.