Defending champions and second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau booked their spots in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships semi-finals on Thursday with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Marcin Matkowski and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi. The Dutch-Romanian team has a 16-4 record in finals, including a 5-1 mark in ATP World Tour 500 title matches. Rojer and Tecau will next face third seeds Ivan Dodig and Rajeev Ram or Robin Haase and Matwe Middelkoop.

Leander Paes moved to within two match wins of 750 victories on day four, partnering Jamie Cerretani to a 2-6, 6-4, 10-7 result over fourth seeds Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus. They will now prepare to face Damir Dzumhur and Filip Krajinovic in Friday’s semi-finals.

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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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Taylor Fritz will never forget his 2017 run at the BNP Paribas Open. Just one year ago, the California native turned in the performance of his young career to stun sixth seed Marin Cilic in three gripping sets and reach the third round. It was his first victory over a Top 10 opponent.

Now, Fritz will have the opportunity to go one step further in 2018. On the heels of a dominant stretch on the ATP Challenger Tour, the #NextGenATP star earned a main draw wild card into the first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event of the year in Indian Wells.

“It feels really good knowing that I’ll be playing in the main draw,” said Fritz. “We’re close to home here, so it’s very special. I’m just happy to know I’m in.”

The top two Americans at the inaugural Oracle Challenger Series – tournaments in Newport Beach and Indian Wells – are awarded berths into the BNP Paribas Open. In January, Fritz claimed the title in the Los Angeles suburb of Newport Beach, his first Challenger victory in two years. He has followed that up with a quarter-final run at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden this week, defeating both Noah Rubin and Norbert Gombos in straight sets.

✅ Newport Beach champ
✅ into Indian Wells QF
✅ @BNPPARIBASOPEN wild card

Tournament director @TommyHaas13 presents @Taylor_Fritz97 with his credential for the first #ATPMasters1000 of the year. pic.twitter.com/DOxi9wXEoZ

— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) March 1, 2018

“Coming into this week, I wasn’t too worried about it,” Fritz added. “I’m just approaching each tournament in the same way. Winning in Newport Beach and doing well here, I managed to pick up the wild card and I’m happy to have that opportunity.”

Fritz, who is up to No. 77 in the ATP Rankings, is rediscovering the top form that saw him climb to the doorstep of the Top 50 in 2016. He has posted a combined 16-4 record thus far this year, also finishing runner-up at the Challenger stop in Noumea and reaching the quarter-finals at last week’s ATP World Tour event in Delray Beach.

Fritz continues his quest for a fifth ATP Challenger Tour title against Dudi Sela in Friday’s quarters.

He might have preferred a tidier match, but Alexander Zverev will definitely be happy with his result from the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco on Wednesday. The second seed saved three set points in the first set and eventually overcame countryman Peter Gojowczyk 7-6(6), 6-3 to move into the quarter-finals in Mexico.

Zverev was serving at 5-6 in the first set but fell behind 15/40 only to save both set points, and in the tie-break, he erased another set point at 5/6. A break at 4-3 in the second set sealed the match.

The World No. 4 converted both of his break-point chances while erasing eight of the nine break points he faced. Gojowczyk had been playing well, too, having reached his second ATP World Tour final at the Delray Beach Open on Sunday (l. to #NextGenATP Tiafoe).

Zverev, in his first quarter-final of the season, will meet Ryan Harrison of the U.S., who handed Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman his first loss in six matches 6-3, 5-7, 6-4. Harrison, who reached the semi-finals at 2015 Acapulco, won nearly 60 per cent of Schwartzman’s second-serve points.

DID YOU KNOW?
During his breakout 2017, Zverev reached 12 quarter-finals and won five ATP World Tour titles.

Former champion Dominic Thiem looked like a hard-court king on Wednesday. The 2016 Abierto Mexicano Telcel champion dismissed #NextGenATP Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 6-3 in just 75 minutes.

The third seed won 77 per cent of his service points and didn’t face a break point. Thiem also benefitted from 20 unforced errors from the left-handed Shapovalov.

“I’m very happy because… everybody knows how good he can play and how dangerous he is, but I kept him kind of down from the first point on, and it was really good,” Thiem said. “I was really on from the first point… Today was almost perfect.”

The Austrian has won nine ATP World Tour titles – seven of which have come on clay. He will next meet Spain’s David Ferrer or Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, who play the final evening match on Cancha Central in Mexico.

Reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion Hyeon Chung kept winning. The South Korean dropped only four games and didn’t face a break point against 21-year-old American Ernesto Escobedo, moving into the quarter-finals 6-3, 6-1. It’s already Chung’s fourth quarter-final of the season – ASB Classic, Australian Open, Delray Beach Open.

Chung will next face France’s Adrian Mannarino or Kevin Anderson of South Africa, the fifth seed who’s playing at a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 8.

American Jared Donaldson, who also played at the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals last November in Milan, also dropped only four games against Aussie Matthew Ebden 6-3, 6-1. Donaldson reaches his first quarter-final of the year, and will next meet either Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis or Feliciano Lopez of Spain.