Philipp Kohlschreiber exhibited his mastery over Fabio Fognini once more on Thursday at the ASB Classic in Auckland, eliminating the second seed 6-3, 6-1 to move into the semi-finals.
The 35-year-old saved both break points faced and benefitted from an error-riddled performance from the Italian, who hit 30 unforced errors, including seven double faults.
“I think I’m still improving my game, even with 35 years old. I think you are still able to improve,” said Kohlschreiber, an eight-time ATP titlist.
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The German leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 7-2. Kohlschreiber, who won the Auckland title in 2008, will play Tennys Sandgren of the U.S. to return to the ATP 250 final.
Sandgren didn’t face a single break point and slid past Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer 6-3, 7-6(5). The 27-year-old American delivered 11 aces and won 83 per cent of his first-serve points.
Sandgren reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open last year, and 44 per cent of his ATP Rankings points (360/814) are from that two-week stretch in Melbourne.
“It’s important because I have a lot of points falling off this month,” Sandgren said, before laughing, about reaching the semi-finals in New Zealand. “I worked really hard in November, December to try and just put myself in a position to play well to start the year, and I’m happy that’s the case so far.”
In the top half of the draw, Auckland native Cameron Norrie ousted American Taylor Fritz 7-6(3), 6-3. Norrie, a wild-card entry, saved all four break points and hit 11 aces en route to his fourth ATP Tour semi-final. He will meet either fourth seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain or German Jan-Lennard Struff in the semi-final.
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