6 days ago
Tie-break marathon: Fritz edges Lehecka without a single break
ATP
Toronto
The National Bank Open saved the best for last on a bumper Sunday that saw all four men's singles matches go into a deciding set.
In the Toronto nightcap, Taylor Fritz edged Jiri Lehecka 7-6(4), 6-7(5), 7-6(5) in a dramatic match in which neither player lost a service game. Across nearly three hours, Fritz saved all nine break points against him while Lehecka saved five.
Fritz escaped 0/40 at 5-6 in the opening set before Lehecka dug out of the same hole at 0-1 in the third set. After fighting off a final break point to hold for 4-3 in the decider, the American closed out the victory by winning five of the last six points from 2/4 in the deciding tie-break, improving to 4-0 in the pair's Lexus ATP Head2Head series.
While Fritz struggled at times to find the court with his aggressive game, finishing with 48 errors, he found a way through to the quarter-finals behind a stellar serving day.
'I think just in the end [it was about] really accepting what was there for me tonight,' said the American, who won 82 per cent of his first-serve points. 'Luckily for me, I was serving really, really well tonight. He was too.
'When it came down to that tie-break, I really bailed myself out with a lot of first serves, and then just trying to put balls in the court and not try any shots that, despite how badly I wanted to try to be aggressive, just be disciplined and just make the balls that I felt like I could make.'
The victory completed the box set of ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finals for Fritz, who is through to that stage in Canada for the first time. He is the 11th active player to reach the quarters at all nine Masters 1000s.
'It's really cool,' said Fritz. 'It shows the consistency on all the different tournaments and surfaces. I guess what's next is to go for semis.'
Fritz has reached the semis in six of the nine Masters 1000s, all but Rome, Cincinnati and Paris.
