Rafael Nadal’s bid to win one of many few titles lacking from his glittering profession began poorly as he was crushed in straight units by eighth-seeded Taylor Fritz of their opening match on the ATP Finals on Sunday.
After a close-fought opening set, Fritz dominated the second because the American secured a 7-6 (3), 6-1 victory over the top-seeded Nadal.
“It feels nice. I felt like popping out first match, particularly for my hopes of getting out of the group, it was going to be actually essential,” Fritz stated. “I got here out and performed an excellent match, and I couldn’t be happier.”
Fritz strengthened his grip on the match when he broke Nadal’s serve within the fourth recreation of the second set.
Nadal fought valiantly to remain within the match and managed to avoid wasting 4 break factors within the sixth recreation however Fritz prevailed on the fifth time of asking to go away him serving for the match. He closed it out when the Spaniard despatched a forehand lengthy.
It was solely Nadal’s second singles match because the U.S. Open as he has struggled with accidents and in addition grew to become a father for the primary time in October.
Nadal has by no means received the ATP Finals title in 10 makes an attempt. He completed runner-up in 2010 and 2013.
Earlier, third-seeded Casper Ruud, who misplaced within the semifinals final yr, eased to a straight-set victory over event debutant Felix Auger-Aliassime within the different Inexperienced Group match.
The match was largely dominated by serving and a solitary break within the seventh recreation of the second set proved sufficient for the Norwegian participant to safe a 7-6 (4), 6-4 win over the fifth-seeded Canadian.
“I believe that is a number of the finest stage that I’ve performed because the U.S. Open,” stated Ruud, who misplaced the ultimate at Flushing Meadows to Carlos Alcaraz. “The final couple of months have been a little bit little bit of a wrestle, I’ve to truthfully say that, however you need to settle for it as effectively.
“You’ll face tough moments in your profession, and possibly these final couple of months was a type of … It doesn’t matter how exhausting you observe in case you don’t win matches, so at the moment was an excellent win for me.”
Novak Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev full the lineup in Turin.
This story has been revealed from a wire company feed with out modifications to the textual content.