Fritz into first Miami semi-final after edging-out Berrettini in marathon

American Taylor Fritz, the No 3 seed, edged out Italian Matteo Berrettini, the No 29 seed, 7-5, 6-7 (7), 7-5 to advance to the last four of the Miami Masters at the Hard Rock Stadium on Thursday night.

The victory sees Fritz through to his maiden Miami Masters semi-final after nine main draw appearances, and is his sixth ATP Masters 1000 semi-final overall.

It was a high-quality affair with both men striking a healthy ratio of winners to unforced errors: Fritz making 38 to 25, Berrettini 41 to 35. Fritz needed seven match points to advance, however, with his opponent saving six match points in the second set, including coming back from 6-3 down in the tiebreak to win 9-7 for the second match in a row.

“It was tough,” Fritz confessed after the two-hour, 44-minute match. “I kept trying to tell myself that he played well, and it was not as much on me, because I’m trying not to get frustrated. I think my best looks there… I had three match points seeing a second serve from him… Yeah, I think I’ve really got to win one of those.

“There’s two options: get frustrated about it, lose, and get even more frustrated about all the chances I blow, or regroup and get the win. Now I can sleep tonight and not be so mad at the chances I blew.”

Fritz makes it five from five against Berrettini

Fritz’s victory extends his head-to-head record against Berrettini to 5-0. Though the match was largely dominated by serve (both made mid-to-high-70 first serve in and first serve won percentages), superior returning by Fritz is what gained him the edge in crucial moments.

The biggest discrepancy was Berrettini’s second serve, which Fritz targeted by standing up on the baseline and winning 17 of 27 times. This generated a crucial break in the 11th game of the deciding set, which ultimately led to the American claiming the match.

“That’s kind of always how I’ve returned his serve,” Fritz explained. “I feel like he’s got such a big serve anyway, it’s pretty tough to take a full swing and hit it, even when you go back. Plus it just gives him time to run around and find the forehand. So I always like to stand in, look to chip those forehands, hopefully it gets on quickly. Especially when I can get a hold of a backhand, I feel like I can really crush it.”

Back to full health and ready to compete

Speaking after the match, Fritz revealed that this week in Miami is the first time he’s felt at full fitness this year – something he’s looking to make the most of.

“The motivation and the fire is really there this week for sure,” he said. “After just being really frustrated in a lot of tournaments recently, kind of just playing through them, knowing that I was playing through an injury, not feeling great about.. I guess… It’s just not fun playing tennis when you have to play around an injury.

“This week it’s the healthiest I’ve felt. I feel like I can play full out and my body can keep up with my tennis, so it’s been a lot of fun, I’ve been excited to be back on the court healthy.”

Fritz, ranked No 4, will face Jakub Mensik next.

In the previous rounds of the Miami Open, the American won against Italian Lorenzo Sonego (7-6 (2), 6-3), Canadian Denis Shapovalov, the No 27 seed (7-5, 6-3) and Australian lucky loser Adam Walton (6-3, 7-5).

Berrettini, ranked No 30, defeated French lucky loser Hugo Gaston (4-6, 6-3, 6-3), Belgian Zizou Bergs (6-4, 6-4) and Australian Alex De Minaur, the No 10 seed (6-3, 7-6 (7)) earlier in the tournament.

Miami Masters 1000, other quarter-finals results (Hard Rock Stadium, hard, USD 9,93,540, most recent results first):

• Novak Djokovic (4) beat Sebastian Korda (24): 6-3, 7-6 (4)
• Jakub Mensik beat Arthur Fils (17): 7-6 (5), 6-1
• Grigor Dimitrov (14) beat Francisco Cerundolo (23): 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-6 (3)