In the second set, he served for the match at 5-4, but was broken. He then held a 14-12 tiebreak against Michelsen in their first meeting.
“I’m very happy to finish in two sets, even if I would have liked to close it out on my serve at 5-4. But things like that happen,” Fils said. quoted The team. “I haven’t played a game in a long time, there was a little tension, a little rush. But I think we put on a good show for the fans. The tie-break was pretty nice.”
To be honest, that had never happened to me.
He admitted that the long wait was strange. “Honestly, that’s never happened to me. I immediately played against a very good opponent who had more matches in his legs than me. I arrived a little under-footed and he got off to a good start, I didn’t. At that point, I asked myself quite a few questions. After all, I play one match and I’m in the semi-finals, so that’s not bad either.”
Phils reaches his 16th ATP Tour semifinal and sixth of the season, his first indoors since Basel 2024. With this win, he overtook Francis Tiafoe to take seventh place in the Tour of Turin. Michelsen, ranked 37th, defeated Italy’s Andrea Guerrieri 6-1, 6-2 to end David Goffin’s career 6-3, 6-4.
Straff, 36, continues on his way
Struff, ranked 58th, defeated Bergs for the second time in 3 matches. At 36 years and 5 months, he becomes the second oldest semi-finalist in European Open history, behind Roberto Bautista Agut, who won the title in 2024 at the age of 36 years and 6 months. He is also the second German to reach the last four here, after Maximilian Marterer in 2023.
The German defeated the American Marcos Girone with a score of 7-6 (3), 7-6 (3) and the lucky loser of Belgium, Gauthier Onklin, with a score of 6-4, 6-2. He reaches his 15th ATP Tour semi-final and first on hard courts since Sofia 2023.
Bergs, ranked 41st and this year’s Eastbourne champion, beat Britain’s Toby Samuel 6-3, 7-6 (3) and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Damir Dzumhur 6-2, 6-4. His defeat leaves no Belgian in the singles semi-finals at the BNP Paribas Fortis European Open, a day after Goffin’s final career match.
