New York (AFP)
The Indian Wells Master 1000 reserved two new surprises on Friday, with the quarter-final defeats of Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas, 3rd player in the world, and of Germany's Alexander Zverev, 4th in the world.
The Californian tournament lost its three seeds with the defeat two days earlier of Russian Daniil Medvedev (2nd in the world).
Zverev, Olympic champion in Tokyo, was beaten by American Taylor Fritz (39th in the world) in straight sets 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, in a game of twists that lasted 2h20.
Fritz started the game well before suffering in the second set and saving two match points at 5-3 in the last set.
He finally won in the tie-break with a nice cross forehand.
The 23-year-old, winner of his first tournament in 2019 in Eastbourne, England, will face Nikoloz Basilashvili (29th) in the semi-finals.
The Georgian also created a surprise earlier in the day by landing for the first time in three meetings of Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas in three sets, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.
Tsitsipas however managed 10 aces in the match, but committed two double faults and made too many mistakes during the 2h10 match.
Basilashvili meanwhile won four of the last five games in the third round.
Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili (right) greets Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas after beating him in the quarter-finals in Indian Wells on October 15, 2021 Frederic J. BROWN AFP
The 29-year-old, winner of the Munich tournament this year, also made it to the final in Doha this year after notably knocking out Switzerland's Roger Federer (9th) in the quarter-finals.
"I'm not surprised. I've been playing good tennis for a while, especially in training," said the Georgian after the game.
"I've improved my serve a lot recently. That's why I'm in the semi-finals."
The other men's semi-final will oppose on Saturday the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (28th), striker of the Polish Hubert Hurkacz (12th), and the Briton Cameron Norrie, winner of the Argentinian Diego Schwartzman (15th).
© 2021 AFP