Dimitrov Downs Garin To Reach First Paris Semi-final

After emphatically snapping a six-match winless record in Rolex Paris Masters third-round matches on Thursday, Grigor Dimitrov claimed another straight-sets victory to book his place in the semi-finals on Friday.

Backing up his impressive 72-minute win against Dominic Thiem, the Bulgarian survived a late test to move past Cristian Garin 6-2, 7-5 in 89 minutes. Dimitrov is through to his first ATP Masters 1000 semi-final since the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters in April 2018.

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Since dropping the opening set in his first-round match against Ugo Humbert, Dimitrov has claimed eight consecutive sets to improve to 13-7 at the ATP Masters 1000 event. The 28-year-old is through to his second semi-final of the year after making his third Grand Slam last-four appearance at the US Open in September.

Dimitrov will meet Novak Djokovic or Stefanos Tsitsipas for a spot in the championship match. The World No. 27 owns one victory from nine FedEx ATP Head2Head encounters against Djokovic and is yet to meet Tsitsipas on the ATP Tour. Dimitrov will be aiming to reach his first final since a runner-up finish at last year’s ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament (l. to Federer).

Garin ends his breakthrough season on the ATP Tour with a 31-22 record. The 23-year-old became the first Chilean to win an ATP Tour trophy since Fernando Gonzalez in 2009, lifting ATP 250 crowns on clay in Houston and Munich.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2JH5nBV