- Taylor Fritz and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina worked hard to win
- Fritz will play either Andy Murray or Gilles Simon in the second round before facing Auger-Aliassime in the third round
On Monday at the Paris Masters, a matchup between Taylor Fritz and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina saw both players put out extraordinary efforts in order to emerge victorious.
At the ATP Masters 1000 event, Fritz was playing against Davidovich Fokina, who was a quarterfinalist in 2021, and Fokina threatened to pull off an early upset against Fritz by trailing by a break in the first set and throwing away a 2-0 lead in the second. However, the ninth seed elevated his game at the right times to withstand the Spaniard’s attack, and he ended up winning 7-5, 6-2 on Court Central in just under an hour and a half after converting five of his ten opportunities to break serve.
“Right now I’m just focused on kind of playing myself into the tournament,” said Fritz. “I feel like any time this year that I’ve won a couple of matches into a tournament, then I’ve done well. So I’ll just try to focus on these early rounds.
“Turin is still in the picture, obviously, but there’s not much else I really could have done. I won Tokyo… Felix has played really, really well, so he deserves it, but I am going to try to steal his spot this week for sure.”
With the victory, Fritz maintained his slim chances of becoming the first player in his career to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in November. The 25-year-old player is presently ranked seventh in the ATP Live Race To Turin, and in order for him to have a chance of overtaking Felix Auger-Aliassime or Andrey Rublev and moving into one of the qualification slots for the season’s final event, he needs to reach the championship match in Paris.
Fritz might face Auger-Aliassime in the third round, but first the American will focus on a second-round matchup against either the defending champion Andy Murray or the local favourite Gilles Simon. Auger-Aliassime is a potential opponent for Fritz in the third round.
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