Just six days after suffering defeat to Alexander Bublik<\/a> in his first ATP Tour semi-final in Gstaad, the 22-year-old Frenchman responded with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over countryman Arthur Rinderknech<\/a> to reach the championship match in Kitzbuehel. During their clash, which was delayed during the first set due to rain, Cazaux won 85 per cent (33\/39) of first-serve points and did not face a break point, according to Infosys ATP Stats.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really happy, because tennis is tough,\u201d said Cazaux, who was sidelined through the end of March and April through injury. \u201cI had injuries at the beginning of the year, I didn\u2019t play well, so I\u2019m really happy to be in my first final on the ATP Tour. I think the first set was my longest set ever\u2026 It wasn\u2019t easy with the rain, but I stayed focused on what I had to do on court. I hope I can continue on this way tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n By notching his personal-best 11th tour-level win of the season, Cazaux is up 25 spots to No. 75 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, 12 places short of his career-high No. 63. In the first all-French semi-final on the ATP Tour since Newport 2023, Cazaux was sharp in all departments, hitting 20 winners to overwhelm Rinderknech in their maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head clash.<\/p>\n Cazaux will face a rematch with the in-form Bublik, who went onto win the Gstaad title. The Kazakhstani moved past Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp<\/a> 6-3, 6-4 in Friday\u2019s second semi-final in Kitzbuehel.<\/p>\n Bublik has now won his past seven matches, highlighted by his second tour-level title of the season in Gstaad. The top seed, who won 81 per cent of his first-serve points against van de Zandschulp, is into his 14th tour-level final and will chase his seventh crown. The 28-year-old is up three spots to No. 27 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.<\/p>\n Did you know? \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kitzb\u00fchel Cazaux banishes SF demons to reach first ATP Tour final in Kitzbuhel, sets Bublik rematch Bublik overcame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-291239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114915249172711866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753467430_475_it-all-adds-up-banner.jpg\"\/)
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<\/strong>Cazaux reached the fourth round at the Australian Open<\/a> last year, defeating Holger Rune<\/a> en route to his best finish at a major tournament.<\/p>\n