Unfancied French teenager Arthur Fils handed top seed Casper Ruud a 6-0, 6-4 thrashing on Friday to reach the hamburg semi-finals.
The No. 71 outsider, who won his first career title two months ago in Lyon the day before the start of Roland Garros, lined up a final four showdown with Alexander Zverev.
The German put out France’s Luca Van Assche 6-3, 6-4 in 89 minutes to achieve a home semi in the port city for the third time in six editions.
Ruud was clearly off his game on the north German clay as he went down to Fils under a barrage of 35 winners while managing only six himself
“He makes you run a lot. My goal was to play a lot of forehands and play a lot on his backhand, and I did it really well today,”
The challenger stunned the Norwegian top seed in the opening set before running out the winner with ease in 79 minutes.
“I’m really happy about it. Of course, it was a tough match,” said Fils in his on-court interview.
“I had good tactics with my coach before the match. We talked before the match: I have to believe I can win,” Fils said.
.”Coming on court, I want to win. I tried to play my game. I played my best today, and I’m happy about it.”
Saturday’ s second semi will be contested between Serb Laslo Djere, who beat Lorenzo Musetti 7-5, 6-3 and Zhang Zhizhen of China, a winner over German Daniel Altmaier 6-4, 6-4.
Main photo:- Arthur Fils celebrates Hamburg victory by ATP Umag
