Eighteen-year-old #NextGenATP star Jannik Sinner’s stock continues to rise.

The Italian teen reached his first ATP Tour semi-final on Friday, defeating fellow #NextGenATP player Frances Tiafoe of the United States 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to make the last four of the European Open in Antwerp. Sinner is the youngest tour-level semi-finalist since 17-year-old Borna Coric accomplished the feat in Basel five years ago.

“I just can say thanks for the wild card!” Sinner said on court after his one-hour, 42-minute triumph. “I think I played good today once more. It was not easy in the end. I was shaking a little bit. On the important points, I was serving quite good, and I’m happy to be in the semi-finals.”

Sinner is proving mature beyond his years, showing a steady composure throughout his run in Antwerp as a wild card. At a career-high No. 119 in the ATP Rankings, Sinner broke Tiafoe for 4-2 in the deciding set with a lasered forehand passing shot that forced a backhand volley error.

But the pressure mounted as he served for victory at 5-3, with a miss on a sitting volley on top of the net giving Tiafoe two break points. Sinner responded well, saving both of those chances with his serve, forcing errors off the American’s racquet. After eliciting a backhand into the net at deuce, Sinner finished off his win with another big serve.

“I tried to start well in the third set, and I think I served a little bit better in the third set. I think that was the key,” Sinner said. “Of course at the end I was shaking a little bit. I tried to reset after the easy volley in the last game and I served a very good first serve and second serve, so I’m very happy now that I’ve reached the semi-finals.”

Sinner struck 10 aces in the match and saved four of the five break points he faced to back up his second-round win over top seed Gael Monfils, which was his first Top 50 victory. The teen was already the youngest quarter-finalist in this event’s history and the youngest player to reach the last eight on the ATP Tour since 18-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime did it last year in Chengdu.

“I played against a tough player, of course. I tried to play my tennis. In the first set, it worked. In the second set, he was a little bit more aggressive, so I felt a little bit under pressure,” Sinner said. “I tried to play quite long, quite deep the ball. It worked very good today.”

Depending on results at other events this week, Sinner could potentially crack the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings on Monday for the first time. This week last year, he was World No. 778. In the semi-finals, Sinner will face former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka — to whom he lost in four sets in his Grand Slam debut at the US Open — or former World No. 6 Gilles Simon.

“Both players are very good,” Sinner said. “I hope I can play once more against Wawrinka, so maybe I can win this time, and I’m looking forward to the next one.”

Denis Shapovalov breezed into his fourth ATP Tour semi-final of the year on Friday at the Intrum Stockholm Open. The fourth-seeded Canadian overcame German qualifier Cedrik-Marcel Stebe 6-0, 6-3 in just 49 minutes.

Shapovalov barely put a foot wrong in the first set, which lasted 18 minutes and finished with a forehand winner. He won 21 of 22 first-service points in the set. Stebe struck a double fault to hand his opponent a 3-2 advantage in the second set, and Shapovalov clinched his 29th match win of 2019 with a smash winner.

On Thursday, Shapovalov qualified for next month’s Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan. He has reached tour-level semi-finals this year at the Miami Open presented by Itau (l. to Federer), the Winston-Salem Open (l. to Hurkacz) and at the Chengdu Open (l. to Carreno Busta).

Shapovalov will next challenge Japanese lucky loser Yuichi Sugita, who defeated Serbian Janko Tipsarevic in a dramatic 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(4) thriller. Tipsarevic, competing in the final ATP Tour event of his career, bravely saved nine match points in the deciding set. But with both men cramping and running on fumes late in the final set, Sugita refused to be overwhelmed by his opponent’s tenacity. He went on a five-point run in the tie-break before advancing in three hours and 10 minutes.

“This is one of the most emotional matches for me,” Sugita said. “I just tried my best.”

The victory puts Sugita into his first ATP Tour semi-final of the year. He now seeks his maiden win over the #NextGenATP Canadian after losing their lone clash two years ago in Basel.

Pablo Carreno Busta continued his fine late-season run of form earlier on Friday. The fifth-seeded Spaniard battled back to beat American Sam Querrey, who struck 16 aces, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in one hour and 38 minutes. Three weeks ago, former World No. 10 Carreno Busta lifted his fourth ATP Tour title at the Chengdu Open (d. Bublik).

The 28-year-old will next play Serbia’s Filip Krajinovic for the first time at tour-level. The pair previously split two ATP Challenger Tour matches at 2013 Poznan and 2015 Braunschweig.

Krajinovic booked a place in the semi-finals by beating Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in 70 minutes. Krajinovic has a career-high 26 match wins this year, highlighted by a run to the Hungarian Open final (l. to Berrettini).

Roger Federer will return to Roland Garros in 2020. The 38-year-old World No. 3 shared his plans with CNN this week. “I will play the French Open,” Federer said.

The Swiss competed at the clay-court major this year for the first time since 2015, reaching his eighth Roland Garros semi-final before falling to 12-time champion Rafael Nadal.

Federer announced earlier in the week that he plans to compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in July as well.

Marin Cilic carved more history for himself on Thursday at the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow. The Croatian earned his 500^th career win, beating countryman Ivo Karlovic 6-1, 7-6(5) to become only the 50^th player in the Open Era to achieve the milestone and just the 10^th active player with 500 or more victories.

Cilic raced through the opener behind two breaks and didn’t face a break point. In the second, Karlovic raised his level but Cilic fought through a tough 3-4 game in which he erased three break points and found a way to advance in the tie-break.

The two-time Moscow champion will next meet France’s Jeremy Chardy, who was untouchable on serve during a 6-3, 6-4 victory against eighth seed Miomir Kecmanovic. Chardy won 83 per cent of his first-serve points and never faced a break point against the Next Gen ATP Finals hopeful.

Sixth seed Andrey Rublev hadn’t won a match at his home tournament before this week. Now the 21-year-old is into the quarter-finals.

Rublev beat Belarusian qualifier Egor Gerasimov 7-6(3), 6-7(7), 6-2 to make the last eight at the ATP 250. Rublev saved six of seven (86%) break points and ran away with the deciding set behind two breaks of serve.

“I’ve known Egor for a long time and I know how he can play. His level does not match his ranking,” Rublev said of Gerasimov, No. 98 in the ATP Rankings. “He’s been showing it for the past couple of months. He is showing good results… against very strong players. He recently beat Matteo Berrettini. I knew it would be very hard.”

The Hamburg European Open finalist (l. to Basilashvili) will next meet Serbian lucky loser Nikola Milojevic, who beat Russian wild card Alen Avidzba 7-5, 6-0. Milojevic took the place of Daniil Medvedev at the top of the draw once Medvedev withdrew following his Rolex Shanghai Masters title on Sunday.

Thirteen years after recording his first ATP Tour match win, Marin Cilic is continuing to add to his legacy.

The Croatian’s latest milestone arrived on Thursday when he earned his 500th tour-level win against Ivo Karlovic at the VTB Kremlin Cup. Cilic is one of just 10 active players on Tour to achieve the feat.

“It would definitely mean that I’ve had an amazing career. I’ve been on the Tour for many years and, more or less, every season has been quite consistent from me,” Cilic told ATPTour.com. “I’ve played a lot of matches and there’s always an opportunity to learn from every match. That’s the nice part of tennis.

“I’m aware of [the milestones] when I achieve them and it’s a huge satisfaction that the work is showing itself in the results. Overall, my goal is to be the best I can be. You always want to be pushing that limit and never be too satisfied. It’s definitely important to have that motivation to keep moving you forward.”

CAREER 500 MATCH WINS CLUB (Active players as of 17 October 2019)

Utilising one of the best serves of his generation to set up an aggressive baseline game centered around his forehand, Cilic has been a staple at the highest levels of the sport for more than a decade. He’s won 18 tour-level singles crowns, including victories at the 2014 US Open (d. Nishikori) and 2016 Western & Southern Open (d. Murray). He also led Croatia to the Davis Cup title last year. The 31-year-old has spent 191 weeks inside the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings and peaked at No. 3 in January 2018.

Cilic’s maiden Grand Slam crown was “a dream come true” for him. From the moment he stepped on Arthur Ashe Stadium for the first time that year, the Croatian fed off the raucous energy of the New York crowd and delivered three of the greatest matches of his career in succession. Cilic sprinted past World No. 7 Tomas Berdych in the quarter-finals, then emphatically defeated Roger Federer for the first time in six attempts before dominating Kei Nishikori in the championship clash.

Fittingly, among those in attendance was Goran Ivanisevic, Cilic’s then-coach and the only other Croatian man in the Open Era to win a Grand Slam singles title.

“[I] had an incredible time… played tremendously well and just enjoyed every single moment,” Cilic told ATPTour.com in August. “It’s just an electrifying atmosphere with the whole stadium screaming and enjoying tennis, loving the game and giving us great pleasure to play. When you are there battling it out, you definitely feel appreciated by all the people. You just try to play the best you can and when you are pumped with adrenaline, I think the best tennis comes out of you.”

But while Cilic’s US Open triumph made him a hero in Croatia, he looks back on his maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown in Cincinnati with equal fondness. He hadn’t reached the last four at a Masters 1000 event prior to that week, but outlasted Grigor Dimitrov in a marathon semi-final that finished at 1:30 am before putting on a flawless serving display to defeat Andy Murray for the title.

“It was just incredible in every single department,” Cilic said. “When you’re a youngster just coming on the Tour, you feel that you have so many years in front of you and that your chance is going to come. But when you get on the Tour, you see the competition is extremely strong and everyone is so motivated. You start to notice that years are going by and you’re getting less chances.

“When you do take that chance as I did, it’s just incredible. It gives you extra belief and confidence in your own game. You don’t need to worry about if your game is good enough to win these types of events, especially against the best guys.”

Cilic isn’t one to rest on his past accomplishments, though. He still feels motivated to pursue more big wins on Tour and believes there are plenty of years left to continue adding to his tally.

“I’d like to be able to get 600 wins,” Cilic said. “It would be an amazing achievement.”

CILIC’S MILESTONE MATCH WINS

Denis Shapovalov has qualified for the Next Gen ATP Finals once again. The 20-year-old Canadian, who debuted at the inaugural 21-and-under event in 2017, secured his place when Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic lost in Moscow on Thursday.

Here are five things to know about one of the #NextGenATP leaders.

1. He can play big on the big stages.
Shapovalov has reached at least one ATP Masters 1000 semi-final the past three seasons. In 2017, he beat Juan Martin del Potro and World No. 2 Rafael Nadal en route to the Coupe Rogers semi-finals in Montreal (l. to Zverev).

Shapovalov was staying in Felix Auger-Aliassime’s basement at the time, and his friend had a poster of Rafa hanging in his house. But Shapovalov ripped it down before upsetting Nadal in the third round.

In 2018, Shapovalov made the semi-finals of the Mutua Madrid Open before falling to eventual champion Alexander Zverev, and this year, the Canadian fell to eventual champion Roger Federer at the Miami Open presented by Itau.

2. He and Federer go “way back”.
Shapovalov lists Federer as his idol, and the two have been on the court together a couple times already. Shapovalov, then 15, warmed up Federer before his Masters 1000 semi-final against Spain’s Feliciano Lopez at the 2014 Rogers Cup in Toronto, Shapovalov’s hometown.

The Canadian has watched countless Federer matches, and the two faced off for the first time in Miami. Shapovalov had said that it was a dream come true to face the Swiss star on such a big stage. But Shapovalov’s favourite part of the 6-2, 6-4 loss ended up being “the warmup”.

“It’s kind of surreal, being on the court against him. Obviously I wasn’t trying to focus on the fact that it’s Roger on the other side,” Shapovalov said at the time. “I was just trying to play as good as I can, and he did a good job today. He played an excellent match. I wasn’t able to kind of stay at his level. So I’m just going to try to learn from this and move forward.”

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3. He has a former ATP Tour champion in his coaching corner.
Since the Winston-Salem Open in August, Shapovalov has been working with former World No. 8 Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, who retired at last year’s St. Petersburg Open. During their first week together, Shapovalov reached his second ATP Tour semi-final of the season (l. to Hurkacz).

“We’ve definitely talked a lot, mentally speaking and how I want to approach these matches, and a couple things during the matches, what I should be focusing on. So he’s definitely helped me quite a bit,” Shapovalov said in Winston-Salem.

4. He could be a budding rapper.
Shapovalov can play well on the big stages, and he also can rap well in front of thousands of people. The Canadian showed off his rapping skills after beating Marin Cilic in March at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

Watch: Shapovalov Raps After Indian Wells Win

5. He has had a special friend in his box.
The stuffed wolf in Shapovalov’s corner is not a comfort animal from when he was younger; Shapovalov purchased the animal last year in Brisbane. The #NextGenATP Canadian tries to play tennis with the ferocity of a wolf, and thought “Storm” would make a good addition to his team.

“I kind of tried to resemble myself to a wolf. I like to have a couple friends with me. I have a close group of friends with me. I can be pretty, not playful, but I like to joke around off the court. When it’s down to business, when I’m hunting, when I’m on court, I’m pretty fierce, intense. I show my teeth. I’m very emotional, very similar to a wolf,” Shapovalov said last year.

“We kind of started calling ourselves the Wolf Pack. We thought we needed a mascot. We found this northern wolf in Brisbane. It was actually in the airport. We thought, ‘Listen, we’ve got to take him. Yeah, we got to adopt him into our family.’ He came with a little tag. His name was Storm.

“We didn’t even have to think of a name, which was good. We weren’t too good with names.”

Watch: Why Does Shapovalov Have A Wolf In His Players Box?

It hasn’t always been easy for Andy Murray during his comeback from January hip surgery. But the Scot is increasingly finding ways to win.

Murray reached his second ATP Tour quarter-final in three weeks on Thursday, defeating Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas 6-4, 6-3 to make the last eight of the European Open in Antwerp. The former World No. 1 now has a .500 record (7-7) at tour-level for the first time since his singles return in Cincinnati.

The 32-year-old let slip his first seven break point chances of the match, but the Scot kept pushing for a breakthrough. And once he did, he Scot never looked back, triumphing after one hour and 24 minutes.

“I felt a bit better today. I thought I served quite well for most of the match and when I was able to get into the baseline rallies, I felt I was hitting the ball quite clean, which is good,” Murray said. “He served very well, which made it difficult for me to get the breaks, but I thought for me it was a good match.”

With a 5-4 lead in the first set, Murray played aggressive tennis to break through Cuevas’ defences. He attacked the Uruguayan’s backhand, eliciting a slice error into the net to break for the opener.

Cuevas made a big push in the second set, earning the only four break point chances he had in the match in the set’s opening game. But Murray maintained his focus, and he would break for 4-2 when Cuevas pushed an inside-out forehand wide.

Murray leads Cuevas 3-0 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, never relinquishing more than four games in any of the seven sets they have played. The World No. 243 will next face Romanian Marius Copil, a qualifier who blasted 13 aces past third seed Diego Schwartzman to upset the Argentine 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(7).

“It’s getting there. It sometimes takes me a little bit longer to get warmed up in the matches and sort of feel confident with my movement,” Murray said of his physical progress. “But today I think from the beginning of the match I started pretty well. It was a good day.”

Murray has won both of his previous matches against Copil, including a three-hour, two-minute triumph last year at the Citi Open that ended at 3:02 am. The Romanian made last year’s Basel final.

“I know him a little bit. He’s had some good wins this week. He plays well on this surface, so I’ll need to be ready for that,” Murray said. “He serves extremely well, so I’ll need to return well.”

This time last year, Jannik Sinner, then No. 778 in the ATP Rankings, was preparing to play a Futures tournament in Tunisia. What a difference a year can make.

The 18-year-old #NextGenATP star earned the biggest victory of his career Thursday, defeating top seed Gael Monfils 6-3, 6-2 to reach the last eight of the European Open for his first ATP Tour quarter-final.

Currently at a career-high World No. 119, Sinner has made good use of the wild card he received in Antwerp. The Italian saved the only break point he faced against Monfils, who at World No. 13 is the highest-ranked player Sinner has ever beaten.

Sinner, who has earned all five of his tour-level wins in 2019, had never previously defeated a Top 50 opponent, with his biggest victory before this coming against World No. 59 Steve Johnson at this year’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia. But he showed plenty of maturity against the veteran Frenchman, breaking Monfils’ serve four times in his 61-minute triumph.

Sinner misfired on a return on his first match point. But if he had any nerves, he did not show them, forcing an error off Monfils’ backhand slice to finish off his win. The Italian tried to contain his emotions, barely cracking a smile. After shaking hands with a congratulatory Monfils, though, Sinner let his joy show with a wide smile.

This was a crucial week for Monfils, who is trying to make a push for Nitto ATP Finals qualification. The Frenchman is in 13th place in the ATP Race To London with 2,170 points.

The teen will next face 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier Frances Tiafoe, who ousted seventh seed Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-4 in 78 minutes. The American is currently placed fifth in the ATP Race To Milan, as he tries to return to the 21-and-under season finale for the second straight year.

Sinner is also making a late push to try to make his debut at the Next Gen ATP Finals. He began the week in 13th place in the Race.