TORONTO – Taylor Fritz stepped under the spotlight and almost immediately blasted three aces with power and precision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hard-serving American never really looked back \u2014 and now has a spot in the National Bank Open semifinals for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz flexed his muscles in impressive fashion Tuesday, cruising past No. 6 Andrey Rublev of Russia 6-3, 7-6 (4) at Sobeys Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was clean,” the No. 2 seed said of his performance. “I’m happy with everything.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz, who sits fourth in the ATP Tour rankings and lost last year’s U.S. Open final to world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, will next face No. 4 Ben Shelton after his countryman also surged through to the semis by topping No. 9 Alex de Minaur of Australia 6-3, 6-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I stayed calm and composed,” said the 22-year-old. “Didn’t panic in the long rallies.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s other semifinal will see top seed and 2017 tournament winner Alexander Zverev of Germany take on No. 11 Karen Khachanov of Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The title showdown for the Canadian men’s tennis championship goes Thursday on the campus of York University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz and Shelton have only met once, back in 2023 when the former picked up a three-set victory in the second round at Indian Wells.<\/p>\n
“He’s a big-match player,” Shelton said. “He’s been carrying the flag for the United States in the big tournaments as of late. He’s clutch, serves well. We’re great friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s a match that I’m really excited about.”<\/p>\n
And while lifting the trophy in northwest Toronto is front of mind, along with putting in a good performance next week in Cincinnati, an even bigger prize sits just over the horizon \u2014 the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Andy Roddick was the last American men’s player to win a Grand Slam when he topped the field in New York all the way back in 2003.<\/p>\n
“I don’t feel like people are counting on me,” said Fritz, who finished with 20 aces Tuesday. “All the pressure that I feel is just the pressure that I’m putting on myself.”<\/p>\n
“I have no doubt that one of us is going to get it at some point,” added Shelton, a rising star currently ranked seventh in the world. “Who knows who it is? You guys just got to wait and see \u2026 American tennis is in a really good place.”<\/p>\n
Fritz came out firing in hazy and breezy conditions with those three aces to win the first game. He then broke Rublev in securing the match’s first eight points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz fired two more aces to go up 4-1 before serving out the set.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rublev lamented the quick Centre Court surface \u2014 “there is not much tennis” \u2014 that played to his opponent’s strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Here the game is very simple,” he said. “Taylor served unbelievable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz, meanwhile, pointed to the harder balls being used in Toronto as having a greater impact on the flow of matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The combination of these balls on a fast court is really ugly tennis, and that’s kind of just how it is,” he said. “(Tuesday) was by far the most playable for me. The most control I felt like I had all week.”<\/p>\n
Looking for his 11th ATP Tour victory \u2014 and second Masters 1000 crown \u2014 Fritz broke Rublev with the second set tied 4-4, but the Russian returned the favour to stay alive in the next game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz, however, wouldn’t be denied in the tiebreak, and hammered his 20th ace to close out the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Santa Fe, Calif., product lost in last month’s Wimbledon semis to world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, who along with a host of top players including Sinner, No. 5 Jack Draper and No. 6 Novak Djokovic skipped this US$9.19-million hardcourt event expanded to two weeks in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz has two tournament wins on grass in 2025 and twice previously fell in the NBO round of 16 before this summer’s run.<\/p>\n
Rublev came to Toronto ranked No. 11 overall after losing in last year’s final to Australia’s Alexei Popyrin. The 27-year-old from Moscow made the fourth round of both Wimbledon and the French Open. Popyrin lost to Zverev in the quarters on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Fritz improved to 6-4 in his career against Rublev, who took their last meeting on clay in the Madrid semifinals some 15 months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He’s one of the best players,” Rublev said. “Great results \u2014 Wimbledon semifinal, great match against Alcaraz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He had (an) unbelievable level.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shelton will get a taste Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO – Taylor Fritz stepped under the spotlight and almost immediately blasted three aces with power and precision.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-48598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}