Wu Yibing battles past Fritz to set up his first ATP final

Wu Yibing showed off his best game to beat Taylor Fritz in three sets, and will face John Isner in the Dallas Open final

Taylor Fritz looked like the favorite against the world No. 97, the American began the tournament as the first seed, and had a first-round bye. On his way to the semifinal he defeated his compatriots Jack Sock and Marcos Giron.

Wu Yibing recorded a win over Michael Mmoh in the first round and defeated third seed Denis Shapovalov in the second round. In the quarterfinals he faced eighth seed Adrian Mannarino and defeated him in straight sets.

In the first set Fritz was highly effective on serve and had several break points in his favor to get ahead, but the Chinese took the important points to reach the tie-break, but the world No. 8 was still superior to take the lead by 7-6(3). In the second set Fritz also had options to break but Wu Yibing improved his game throughout the set and got a break to level the score at 7-5.

The Chinese broke the serve of the former Indian Wells champion's in the fifth game, and despite showing some weariness, he managed to hold serve and defeat a frustrated Fritz by 6-7, 7-5, 6-4

Wu Yibing this week became the second Chinese player to achieve the top 100, after Zhang Zhizhen did so in 2022. At April’s last year Wu was ranked 1,869 after years of injuries but had a great return to the tour. He won three ATP Challengers and reached the third round of the US Open, in which Medvedev defeated him in 3-sets.

In the first final of his career, the 23-year-old will have to face off against the experienced local player John Isner.