Dallas
\n Fritz hammers 22 aces to beat Cilic, reaches Dallas final<\/p>\n
Top seed to play Shelton or Shapovalov in Sunday\u2019s final\n<\/p>\n
February 14, 2026<\/p>\n
Sam Hodde\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz in action on Saturday in Dallas.
\n By Vishakha Khandelwal<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz<\/a> halted the run of a resurgent Marin Cilic<\/a> in the semi-finals of the Nexo Dallas Open on Saturday. <\/p>\n In a match decided by fine margins, the top seed held his nerve to edge the Croatian 7-6(5), 7-6(3) in a gripping two-hour, two-minute clash, hammering 22 aces past the 37-year-old.<\/p>\n “Just really calm serving. I think that’s the biggest thing when I feel calm and relaxed, I serve well,” Fritz said in his on-court interview.<\/p>\n Both players dominated with big deliveries in a match that featured no breaks. Fritz did not face a break point and struck 22 aces to Cilic\u2019s 16, including four in the first-set tie-break, according to Infosys ATP Stats. Although he failed to convert any of his five break-point chances, Fritz’s composure on serve ultimately made the difference as he won 86 per cent (48\/56) of his first-serve points.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s something every tennis player experiences when you\u2019re the one in the opponent\u2019s service games,” Fritz said. “You have some chances, you\u2019re cruising on your service games and all of a sudden they get one break point, you\u2019ll probably win it. You\u2019ll go to the tie-break, all of a sudden some returns came back and I just told myself to be really ready in that tie-break.”<\/p>\n With the win, Fritz took a 3-1 lead in the pair\u2019s Lexus ATP Head2Head series and advanced to his first final on home soil after reaching the US Open<\/a> final in 2024. He will face countryman Ben Shelton<\/a> or defending champion Denis Shapovalov<\/a> in the title match.<\/p>\n Cilic was hoping to reach his first final above the ATP 250 level since winning the Queen\u2019s Club title in 2018. With his semi-final run in Dallas, the Croat is up 18 spots to No. 43 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Fritz hammers 22 aces to beat Cilic, reaches Dallas final Top seed to play Shelton or Shapovalov…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-469229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}