{"id":19121,"date":"2024-02-08T23:24:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T04:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/frances-tiafoe-tops-alex-michelsen-advances-at-dallas-open\/08\/02\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-02-08T23:24:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T04:24:03","slug":"frances-tiafoe-tops-alex-michelsen-advances-at-dallas-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/frances-tiafoe-tops-alex-michelsen-advances-at-dallas-open\/08\/02\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Frances Tiafoe tops Alex Michelsen, advances at Dallas Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>DALLAS &#8212; Top-seeded <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2708\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Frances Tiafoe<\/a> advanced to the quarterfinals of the Dallas Open with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over 19-year-old fellow American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=11400\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Alex Michelsen<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>Tiafoe gave himself three match points with a backspinning drop volley that landed so close to the net, it bounced back over to his side. Michelsen had already given up pursuit when the ball bounced.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old Tiafoe closed out his first match of the tournament on his first match point when Michelsen put a forehand into the net for Tiafoe&#8217;s fifth service break.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/39481141\/ben-shelton-wins-straight-sets-makes-dallas-open-quarterfinals\" class=\"img-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Japan&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2226\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Yoshihito Nishioka<\/a> withdrew from the late match, putting France&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Adrian Mannarino<\/a> in the quarterfinals without having played a match.<\/p>\n<p>The other round-of-16 winners were No. 7 seed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2244\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Jordan Thompson<\/a> of Australia, 6-1, 6-1 over American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1629\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Denis Kudla<\/a>, and eighth-seeded German <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3437\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Dominik Koepfer<\/a>, 6-4, 7-6 (5) over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3716\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rinky Hijikata<\/a> of Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Michelsen, who has risen into the top 100 over the past year, had the first break for a 3-2 lead in the first set but immediately gave it back on Tiafoe&#8217;s second break point in the next game with one of his four double faults.<\/p>\n<p>After getting another break for a 5-4 lead, Tiafoe lost the first two points while serving for the first set. He won the next four, getting his first set point with a cross-court winner on an attempted drop shot from Michelsen, who then put a backhand into the net.<\/p>\n<p>After a long exchange of sliced backhands and forehands in the second set, Michelsen brought Tiafoe in with another drop shot before watching a lob go over his head.<\/p>\n<p>Tiafoe won 71% of the points when he came to the net to 35% for Michelsen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Once he broke me, I really had to up my level,&#8221; Tiafoe said. &#8220;I wanted to kind of be the aggressor. From there, I played really well, I thought. A lot of creativity, and I got a little lucky at times.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 14th-ranked Tiafoe, who lost in the second round of the Australian Open after reaching the U.S. Open quarterfinals last summer, will play American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1993\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Marcos Giron<\/a> in the quarters.<\/p>\n<p>The top three seeds in the Dallas event are Americans. No. 2 seed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2964\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tommy Paul<\/a> faces Koepfer in the quarterfinals, and third-seeded <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=9250\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ben Shelton<\/a> will play Thompson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/39488234\/frances-tiafoe-tops-alex-michelsen-advances-dallas-open\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DALLAS &mdash; Top-seeded Frances Tiafoe advanced to the quarterfinals of the Dallas Open with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over 19-year-old fellow American<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/frances-tiafoe-tops-alex-michelsen-advances-at-dallas-open\/08\/02\/2024\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[1016,926,637,2241,4787,725,2242,1392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19123,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19121\/revisions\/19123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}