A fabulous win in three games. American Fritz wins exhibition in Saudi Arabia

The tennis season is long over for many, players are on vacation or preparing for the upcoming United Cup. But there are exhibitions, and one of them took place a few days ago in Saudi Arabia, from which the surprise winner, American Taylor Fritz, took home a fabulous prize.

In exhibition tournaments or matches, the pace is usually very relaxed and it doesn’t matter too much who the winner is.

In the case of the Saudi Arabian exhibition, however, the organisers made sure that the players were seeded the same as in regular ATP tournaments.

In fact, they put a lot of money into the tournament and arranged generous prize money for the advancing players. The following players took part in the tournament: Dominic Thiem, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublyov, Cameron Norrie, Nick Kyrgios, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Taylor Fritz, Stan Wawrinka, Matteo Berrettini, Alexander Zverev, Hubert Hurkacz, and Dominic Stricker.

The eighth round was played in two sets to 10 points. Daniil Medvedev, Stan Wawrinka, Cameron Norrie, and Taylor Fritz advanced to the quarterfinals.

Medvedev of Russia and Fritz of the USA made it to the final. The deciding match lasted two hours and featured two tiebreakers. Medvedev was the better player throughout the match, not offering his opponent a single break point.

However, it was the shortened games in which the young American proved to be the better player. He won the first set tiebreak 7-5 and the second 7-3. He was then able to receive another trophy and end an extraordinary year in his career.

During this season he won three ATP titles, including the Indian Wells Masters. Fritz is ranked 9th in the rankings and was last able to reach the semi-finals of the Masters Tournament.

He took home a fabulous prize of $1 million (23 million crowns) from the Diriyah Tennis Cup. The losing finalist Medvedev took home half a million dollars.

The doubles spider was dominated by the pair of Hurkacz and Stricker, who took on Berretti and Rubljov.

Source: Diriyah Tennis Cup