Ben Shelton rallied past Canada’s Denis Shapavalov for a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory on Saturday to set up an all-American final of the Nexo Dallas Open against Taylor Fritz.
The second-seeded Shelton faced 11 break points but saved 10 of them, including all seven over the final two sets. He had eight aces to four double faults, breaking open a deciding tiebreaker with three straight points in a 3-3 deadlock to inch to the brink of victory.
Fritz won in straight sets but needed a pair of tiebreakers to do so, defeating Marin Cilic of Croatia 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3). It was an impressive statistical performance for the top seed, with 22 aces, no double faults and over twice as many winners (35) as unforced errors (17).
ABN Amro Open
Like in Dallas, the top two seeds of the Rotterdam, Netherlands, tournament will face off in the final after No. 1 Alex de Minaur of Australia and No. 2 Felix Auger Aliassime of Canada each won in straight sets.
de Minaur beat France’s Ugo Humbert 6-4, 6-3, saving all 10 break points he faced while converting three of the four he had on Humbert’s serve. The top seed had just four winners and 23 unforced errors.
Auger Aliassime beat No. 3 seed Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-2 in 54 minutes. He faced no break points in the convincing victory, winning 27 of his 28 (96.4%) first-service points with 25 winners and 12 unforced errors.
IEB+ Argentina Open
Top-seeded Francisco Cerundolo defeated No. 7 seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-3, 7-5 in a semifinal battle of Argentine competitors in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cerundolo won 83.3% of his first-service points and faced just one break point. Etcheverry had nearly twice as many unforced errors (26) as winners (14), winning just 26.9% of his return points.
In the other semifinal, No. 2 seed Luciano Darderi of Italy defeated Argentinian No. 4 seed Sebastian Baez 7-6 (2), 6-1 to prevent a final between home-country competitors. After a first set with no breaks, Darderi won the final six games of the second set to clinch the victory, winning 12 of 13 service points (92.3%) and 15 of 26 return points (57.7%).
–Field Level Media
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