Alex de Minaur kept his hopes of advancing to the semifinals alive at the ATP Finals following a victory over Taylor Fritz.
The Australian had to win in straight sets against Fritz to stay in the tournament, and he did just that, beating the American 7-6, 6-3.
Should Carlos Alcaraz, who is already through, beat Lorenzo Musetti in his final round-robin match, De Minaur will book his place in the final four.
Following a pair of defeats to Alcaraz and Musetti in his first two matches in Turin, De Minaur bounced back against Fritz in a defiant display.
Analysing his performance after the match, former American ATP player Ryan Harrison was amazed.
Ryan Harrison reacts to Alex de Minaur’s win at the ATP Finals
Speaking on Sky Sports, Harrison said: “That’s an effort that goes down in the books as one of the most impressive mental efforts I’ve seen in a very long time.
“You can see on the camera there ‘finally’, with a smile, just to give you a little insight as to what was going through his mind.
“He played an amazing match point on the one to try and close it out; he didn’t do anything wrong. All of a sudden, the Fritz train starts; he’s down 0-30, unreturnable serves.
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“Fritz had nearly twice as many unforced errors as winners. A few of those winners came in the final points where he was trying to close it and make that gap a little bit tighter, but the big number here is net points won: 14 from 16.
“A massive area of difference between Fritz and De Minaur, it stayed true there, he got in the net a lot. You have to tip your cap, this is an incredible effort from De Minaur to work through all of those nerves.
“He did incredibly well behind the first serve, 83% of points won, using that wide serve twice to bail himself out there in the final game. I’m so impressed with his mental effort.”
Ryan Harrison says Carlos Alcaraz will be ‘raring to go’ against Lorenzo Musetti
Alcaraz is already in the semifinals, but he will need to beat Musetti in order to guarantee the year-end world number one position.
Harrison said: “With Carlos playing later for the world number one year-end ranking, you’ve got to expect that he’s going to be raring to go.
“If you’re De Minaur, all you can do is watch. He’s going to have his Spanish flag out; he grew up in Spain, his coach is from Spain, and he has a lot of Spanish roots.
“He’s going to be in full Spanish force as he cheers on Carlos Alcaraz to try and get through the Italian.
“He’s going to have to face the crowd, though, because this crowd is going to be well aware that the world number one being in balance relies firmly on their fellow Italian taking down Carlos Alcaraz.”
Alcaraz will also need to beat Musetti in order to avoid playing Jannik Sinner in the semifinals.
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