American Taylor Fritz saved a match point before clawing his way back to beat Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 6-7(4) 7-6(7) 6-3 on Monday as Andrey Rublev beat Argentine Diego Schwartzman 6-4 6-1 as part of the first round of matches at Vienna’s Erste Bank Open ATP 500 tournament.
Nishioka was a point away from a straight-set victory but saw himself lose the second set before losing to a Fritz match point an hour later and smashing his racket in rage at letting the match slip away in dramatic fashion.
Fourth seed Fritz now plays the winner of Denis Shapovalov and Jurij Rodionov.
Meanwhile, the third-seeded Russian comfortably beat his Argentine opponent to set up a showdown against the winner of Grigor Dimitrov and Thiago Montero.
