Alex de Minaur broke his top-10 curse and reached the last four of the ATP Finals on Friday after beating Taylor Fritz in straight sets 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 in Turin.
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De Minaur had to win in straight sets in order to have any chance of making it out of the Jimmy Connors Group, and booked his place in the semi-finals after Carlos Alcaraz beat Lorenzo Musetti later on Friday.
Alcaraz’s win means seventh seed De Minaur will take second place in the group after avoiding a sixth straight defeat at the Finals.
With it, de Minaur became the first Australian to reach the final four in 21 years while he also ended a 16-match losing streak against players inside the top 10.
Hard court specialist De Minaur won his 43rd match of the season on the surface, the most on the men’s tour, and was too much for Fritz once he prevailed in the first set tie-break.
“Couple days ago was one of the toughest days I’ve had in my career. I was in a very, very dark spot. I could tell you that I hated the sport,” De Minaur told reporters.
“Here we are two days later and I’m feeling great about myself. It’s incredible.”
De Minaur revealed that personal battle after defeat to Musetti on Tuesday helped his mindset coming into the match with Fritz.
“Regardless of the result today, I had made peace with myself. That was a big, big moment. I knew the way I wanted to play. I was going to commit to it from the first point to the last,” he said.
“I was okay with the result not going my way. I had made peace with that. I just wanted to play my way.”
Defeat for Fritz in one hour and 35 minutes ended the American’s participation in this year’s edition of the prestigious end-of-season tournament.
“Today was probably the match that I’m not super happy about,” Fritz said.
“I thought the other two matches I played well, did a lot of things well that maybe I hadn’t been doing well. I thought the first two matches I returned exceptionally well… There’s some positives to take. Obviously, right now I feel pretty upset.”