Bautista Agut Growing In Confidence In Dubai

Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut moved to within one victory of a place in his 14th ATP World Tour final (7-6 record) on Thursday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. The 29-year-old edged past Borna Coric of Croatia 7-6(4), 6-4 in one hour and 43 minutes for a place in the semi-finals, where he will meet a wild card, Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri or Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.

Third seed Bautista Agut, who beat Juan Martin del Potro for his second ASB Classic trophy in January, recovered from a 1-3 deficit in the first set. He broke Coric to love at 4-4 in the second set. “I think I played very good tennis,” said Bautista Agut. “[It] was not easy to beat Borna [as] he’s very solid. He was hitting very good serves and playing very aggressively… I didn’t rest all match.”

Second-seeded Frenchman Lucas Pouille, this year’s Open Sud de France titlist (d. Gasquet), will challenge eighth seed Yuichi Sugita of Japan later today. Meanwhile, seventh-seeded Serbian Filip Krajinovic meets Evgeny Donskoy of Russia.

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