Taylor Fritz vs. Alex de Minaur
🤜 Head to Head: Tied 5-5 (first meeting in 2025)
The Preview: The four players in the Jimmy Connors Group still have everything to play for. So much, in fact, that the ATP’s website lists 10 different qualification scenarios for the semifinals, which involve all four players. What matters to start the day is that neither Fritz, who is 1-1 so far in Turin, nor De Minaur, who is 0-2, has qualified for the semifinals, or been eliminated from them.
Both the American and the Australian are coming off tough losses on Tuesday. Fritz won the first set against Carlos Alcaraz but couldn’t quite finish the job. De Minaur, meanwhile, was nosed out at the finish line by a crowd-fueled Lorenzo Musetti. Fritz and De Minaur were both brutally honest about their disappointment later. Fritz said he had the shots he wanted to beat Alcaraz, but didn’t make them. De Minaur said the Musetti defeat was another in a series of close losses this year that are starting to “eat me alive.”
All of which means that motivation should be high for each of them on Thursday. They both have a shot at the semis, and they both will want to put a painful loss behind them. They’ll also know that this match will be up for grabs. Fritz and De Minaur have played 10 times, and each has won five. They played four times in 2023 and 2024, and each won twice. They played in Turin last year, and Fritz came back from a set down to win in three.
This is pretty much a pure offense-vs.-defense matchup. Fritz wins with his serve first, and his serve-forehand second. De Minaur, five inches shorter, wins with his speed and scrappiness. That means the result will primarily be on Fritz’s racquet. If he’s hitting the ball well enough to nearly beat Alcaraz, he’s probably hitting it well enough to close it out against De Minaur.