Young American Taylor Fritz continued his excellent start to the 2016 season, as he defeated Alex Bolt 7-6, 6-4 in the Happy Valley Challenger.
The match was, as the scoreline suggested, a tight affair with the first set going to a tiebreak. Both men had traded breaks, though Fritz had enjoyed slightly more success in terms of points won. The tiebreak was a close as the main body of the set had been, Fritz winning by a margin of just two points, seven-five.
The second set again proved close, with Fritz posting strong service statistics, and Bolt merely good. Thus, it was Bolt who surrendered the one and only break in the second set. The Australian was unable to fashion a single break point against the Fritz serve in the second set, meaning the American took his place in the semi-finals.
The eighteen year-old, who is the reigning US Open Boy Singles champion, is looking to contest his fourth Challenger final in just seven events. Fritz had won his first two finals against Jared Donaldson and Dustin Brown respectively, before falling in the third final to Henri Laaksonen.
Standing in Fritz’s path to at least being to play for another Challenger title is Andrew Whittington. Whittington qualified for this event before defeating second-seeded American Bjorn Fratangelo in his first-round match, then beating Bradley Mousley, and Dennis Novak to earn the meeting with Fritz. It represents an excellent tournament already for Whittington, who came into the event ranked 500.
On the other side of the draw Dudi Sela nearly earned the coveted double-bagel over Czech twenty-five year old Jan Satral. Sela won the mismatch 6-1, 6-0 in under forty minutes. The top seed was expected to win, but the margin of victory was surprising considering Satral had accounted for Aleksandr Nedovyesov and Peter Polansky earlier in the week.
Marton Fucsovics represents Sela’s semi-final match-up after he defeated Hiroki Moriya 6-0, 6-3. The Hungarian made a mockery of his higher-ranked opponent and his win extends his Head-to-Head lead over Moriya to 3-1.
