Japan’s Yasutaka Uchiyama walked onto the Colosseum at Ariake Tennis Park Friday with hopes of reaching his first ATP Tour semi-final, thrilling the Tokyo fans in the process. But big-serving American Reilly Opelka brought those dreams to a halt.
Opelka defeated the qualifier 6-3, 6-3 in one hour and 18 minutes to reach the last four of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships, his first trip to the semi-finals of an ATP 500 event. This is his main draw debut in Tokyo.
The highest-ranked player left on the bottom half of the draw has not lost a set this week. He has been broken just once in three matches, and that came in his second-round victory against French veteran Gilles Simon. Opelka cracked 16 aces against Uchiyama and while he did not face a break point, he earned 10 of them against the home favourite, converting three times.
Opelka's decisive breakthrough came at 3-3 in the second set. The 6'11" right-hander lost only one point in his first three service games of the set, pressuring Uchiyama. And on break point, he cracked three big forehands — the last of which was an approach shot winner — to gain an advantage he would not relinquish.
It has been a breakthrough season for the 22-year-old, who won his first ATP Tour title in February at the New York Open. He achieved a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 42 in August, and he is projected to surpass that on Monday, pending results in Tokyo and Beijing the rest of the week.
Opelka will next face Australian John Millman, who beat Japan's Taro Daniel 6-4, 6-0. The American is trying to reach his second tour-level final.
Did You Know?
Opelka is second on the ATP Tour in aces with 828, trailing only countryman John Isner, who enters the Beijing quarter-finals with 952 in 2019.
from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2LHG6ZE
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