Wu Yibing stunned Taylor Fritz with the top seed 6-7 (3/7), 7-5, 6-4 at the Dallas Open on Saturday and became the first Chinese to reach the ATP final in the Open Era.
The 23-year-old beat third-place Denis Shapovalov and eighth-place Adrian Mannarino to become the second Chinese to reach the Open Era Tour-level semi-finals, joining Pan Bing in first place. the last four in Seoul in 1995.
Wu said he hadn’t thought of such a story against Fritz, and he hadn’t even thought of a win that would lead to a title clash with fifth-place American John Isner.
“When I played today, I didn’t think about the score or about winning. I was just trying to show my best,” he said in his on-court interview after closing the match with two of his 34 winners.
After Fritz managed to break the first set, which lasted 58 minutes, Wu had to hit five break points in Game 4 and lost 0-30 in Game 10.
He managed to hold the pitch, break Fritz and hold again to score the set, and made a break in the fifth game of the third set, his first career win over a top 10 player.
Wu, who reached a career-high 97th in the world rankings on Monday, is poised to become the highest-ranking Chinese player in world rankings history, surpassing Zhang Zhizhen, currently ranked 91st.
On Sunday, he will face seasoned Isner, who reached his 31st ATP final with a 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7/4) victory over American JJ Wolf.
Isner’s powerful serve helped him overcome a sluggish game.
“I saved a lot of break points with non-return pitches. Without that, I would have been blown off the court 6-3, 6-4,” Isner said.
bb / kav
Source: sports.yahoo.com
