Taylor Fritz ended Canadian hopes at the ATP Toronto Masters on Friday as he crushed Gabriel Diallo 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the fourth round.<\/p>\n
The American second seed needed just 77 minutes to dispatch the the 37th-ranked local and book a meeting with Jiri Lehecka<\/a>, a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4<\/a> winner over France’s Arthur Fils<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fritz<\/a> is aiming to at least reach the quarter-finals north of the border, the only Masters where he has not gone that far.<\/p>\n He broke once in the opening set against a nervous opponent and dominated from there<\/a>.<\/p>\n “It was important not to let him get into the match and get the crowd fired up,” <\/b>Fritz said. “I knew the momentum could shift at any time.<\/b><\/p>\n “I’m super happy with it, considering how I felt on the court two nights ago in my first match,” <\/b>Fritz added.<\/p>\n “I felt way more comfortable, confident, just hitting the ball, being aggressive, just striking it. I did well to be up an early break in the sets. I did well to just hold.<\/b><\/p>\n “Played really solid from the baseline as well. I backed it up well from the ground, and just did a good job of not letting him back in the sets.”<\/b><\/p>\n Brandon Nakashima<\/a> won his first set against American Ben Shelton<\/a> before the fourth-seeded Shelton rallied to finish off a 6-7(8), 6-2, 7-6(5)<\/a> win.<\/p>\n Shelton had trailed by a break in the deciding set and Nakashima saved four match points before Shelton sealed the victory with his 19th ace.<\/p>\n Shelton finished with 46 winners to improve to 5-0 against Nakashima and will fight for a quarter-final berth against Flavio Cobolli<\/a>, who downed Fabian Marozsan<\/a> 6-2, 4-6, 6-3<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I’ve got to find my fire from somewhere,” <\/b>Shelton said of the late-night crowd support in Canada. “I live off of that.<\/b><\/p>\n “Night matches are never easy, the temperature cools down and conditions are different. I showed a lot of perseverance. it’s difficult being down against a big server. To come from behind takes a bit of luck.”<\/b><\/p>\n The seeded pair of Andrey Rublev<\/a> and Frances Tiafoe<\/a> were tested over three sets before also making their way into the fourth round.<\/p>\n Sixth seed Rublev, runner-up in Canada a year ago to Alexei Popyrin<\/a>, advanced 5-7, 6-4, 6-3<\/a> as Lorenzo Sonego<\/a> double-faulted on match point in their contest.<\/p>\n You have to compete<\/p>\n Tiafoe, the number seven, confessed to a bad day but earned his win the hard way as he beat Australian Aleksandar Vukic<\/a> 6-3, 4-6, 6-3<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The ball was flying a lot, it was really ugly, but I’m happy to get through it,” <\/b>Tiafoe said. “It doesn’t matter how you win. You just have to compete.”<\/b><\/p>\n Tiafoe next lines up against another Aussie in Alex de Minaur<\/a>, who advanced when compatriot Christopher O’Connell<\/a> pulled out with an injury.<\/p>\n Rublev now goes against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina<\/a>, who beat him this season on clay in Barcelona. The Spaniard beat Jakob Mensik<\/a> 6-2, 6-4<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I’m really happy, it’s my first time in the round of 16 here in Toronto,” <\/b>Rublev said, adding that he had to adjust his serve in windy conditions to fashion his comeback.<\/p>\n “I played more aggressive in the second set and made fewer mistakes. I was doing more with my serve. I had to slow it wide in the wind.”<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Fritz ended Canadian hopes at the ATP Toronto Masters on Friday as he crushed Gabriel Diallo 6-4,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-311769","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\/114958888079221688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311769","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=311769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}