The greatest season of Taylor Fritz’s career extended for another day as he toppled Alexander Zverev in a tense, quality tussle to reach the final stage of the ATP Finals for the first time. In a tough battle between two of the best servers in the world, Fritz held on to narrowly defeat Zverev 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (4).
With another tremendous victory, Fritz now sits at No 4 in the ATP live world rankings, and only a title for Casper Ruud would stop him from rising to a new career high on Monday.
Having reached his first grand-slam final at the US Open, Fritz will compete for the biggest title of his career against either the world No 1 Jannik Sinner or Ruud. The 27-year-old is the first American to reach the final since James Blake in 2006.
While Fritz arrived in the semi-finals after finishing runner-up in his round robin group behind an imperious Sinner, Zverev had won all three of his group matches, including a straight sets victory against Carlos Alcaraz on Friday.
By winning his group, however, Zverev set up a match with his nemesis this year. Fritz has now defeated the German on four consecutive occasions, including in the fourth round of Wimbledon and the quarter-finals of the US Open. He has completely overturned their head-to-head record in the process, which he now leads 7-5
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Zverev, meanwhile, finishes one of the best seasons of his career having won two Masters 1000 events and a tour-leading 69 matches. However, while he finishes the season at his career-high ranking of No 2, he has been surpassed by his closest rivals in his most important matches of the year.
