Taylor Fritz battles past Alex de Minaur at ATP Finals, Jannik Sinner qualifies for semifinals

Taylor Fritz has battled past Alex de Minaur at the ATP Finals, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, to not only improve to 2-1 in his round-robin group, but to give himself a good chance of qualifying for the semifinals.

It’s not clinched yet, though.

With De Minaur winning the first set against Fritz, Jannik Sinner became the first player to qualify from the Ilie Nastase Group.

The second qualifier from the group will be determined by Thursday's night match between Sinner and Daniil Medvedev.

If Sinner wins just one set against Medvedev tonight, then Sinner and Fritz qualify for the semifinals as first and second place in the group. That includes Sinner winning in straight sets, Sinner winning in three sets and Medvedev winning in three sets.

If Medvedev defeats Sinner in straight sets, Medvedev and Sinner qualify for the semifinals as first and second place in the group. Fritz would be eliminated in a three-way 2-1 tie.

De Minaur was already eliminated just by dropping a set to Fritz.

De Minaur has given Fritz all kinds of trouble in the past, not only coming into their match in Turin with a 5-3 head-to-head lead, but winning their last two meetings too, at the Masters 1000 event in Canada last year and the United Cup earlier this year.

And things looked dicey for Fritz on Thursday night, too, as he not only dropped the opening set to the Australian, but was down break point in the opening game of the second set—he then faced another break point serving at 3-all in the second set.

But he held both of those service games and from 4-all he caught fire, winning six of the next seven games to capture the second set and race out to a 4-1 lead in the third, and the two held from there.

Both players finished the match with more winners than unforced errors, Fritz 26 to 23 and De Minaur 27 to 26.

It was actually the first three-setter of the tournament.

Fritz will now await the result of the night match to see if he qualifies for the semifinals for a second time in his career, having reached the final four in 2022, falling to Novak Djokovic.