Paul beats Fritz in a historic match to advance to AMT final

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  • The duel between the Americans became the longest in tournament history; 
  • Tommy Paul reaches his first ATP 500 final of his career

Acapulco, March 3rd – Americans Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz engaged in a hard match that defined one of the finalists of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presented by HSBC and will go down in history. 

Both took to the court to fight for the pass and gave their best, despite all the cramps and vomiting, respectively, due to the high physical demand of the match. In the end, Tommy seemed to be better prepared and came out with an upper hand.

From the begining it seemed that Fritz was not as sharp as in his previous two matches. On the contrary, Paul maintained the pace that took him to the semifinals and managed to take a 6-3 lead in the first set.

Fritz broke first in the second set, but lost the lead in the next game. Tommy broke it again and put himself in a position to serve for the win, even missing a match point with a smash into the back of the court. Taylor recovered the break and ended up taking the set in the tiebreak by 7-6(2). 

In the final set, Fritz, ranked number five in the world, went ahead first, but Paul came from behind to regain the break. Tommy even had a couple more match points over Fritz’s serve, but Taylor stayed alive.

Shortly before the third set tiebreak, Fritz began vomiting as a result of fatigue. After that he was never the same and in the tiebreak he was clearly outplayed by Paul, who overcame muscle cramps to take advantage of his opponent’s fitness and signed for the final 7-6 (2).

A duel between Americans looked to be an even match, so much so that it became the longest in tournament history. When Tommy Paul clinched his fourth match point, the clock had overpass 3 hours and 25 minutes, eclipsing the match between Stefan Kozlov and Grigor Dimitrov in 2022, which lasted 3 hours and 21 minutes.

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