Frances Tiafoe continues winning in Vienna, defeats Schwartzman for the semifinals

It's been a rather solid year for Frances Tiafoe who flashed his potential several times during the 2021 season. One of those flashes is currently happening in the Austrian capital of Vienna where the American will contest the semifinal tomorrow. Today's opponent in the quarterfinals was an in-form Schwartzman but the American had no issues in securing the win.

From the start, it was apparent that Schwartzman would have trouble against Tiafoe who returned rather well and deep. The American was hitting precise shots that were finding angles that were hard to cover for the Argentinian. Tiafoe took a 3-0 lead but after a few mistakes, he found himself facing break points. Unable to save them the score line was displaying 3-3.

At 5-4 for Tiafoe, the Argentinian needed to produce a good effort to stay in the set but he failed. The American jumped out to a 40-0 lead and after squandering two sets points he finally converted the 3rd one. The opening set win gave Tiafoe confidence and together with the crowd cheering the American started feeling himself. Winners were coming from all sides and rather quickly it was 3-0.

That lead snowballed to a 5-1 lead with the American serving for the huge victory but a bit of careless play gave Schwartzman a lifeline. Schwartzman won his service game and actually broke Tiafoe once more to make it 5-4. He won the next game as well and the one after completing a 5-0 run to give himself a chance to serve out the 2nd set.

Schwartzman failed to do that and we went to the tiebreak where both had moments of brilliance but in the end, it was Tiafoe who prevailed. He used the first match point he had in the tiebreak, it came 32 minutes after he had his first.