ATP Adelaide: Mahach comes back to beat Paul, Amber narrowly defeats Davidovich Fokina

On January 16, 2025, the ATP250 Adelaide semifinals wrapped up, with the top two men's singles seeds both knocked out. In men's doubles, the second-seeded pair Haileiwala/Patten and the fourth-seeded duo Krawitz/Putz secured spots in the final.

Mahach

The first semifinal was contested between the No. 2 seed Paul and the No. 8 seed Mahach, who led their head-to-head 2-1 from three prior meetings. The match started evenly, but in the fourth game, Paul saved four break points to hold serve and then took control, winning five consecutive games to claim the first set 6-2. In the second set, Mahach capitalized on a break opportunity to level the match at 6-3. In the deciding set, Mahach broke Paul's serve early and again near the end, sealing the set 6-3 and completing the comeback.

The headline semifinal between top seed Davidovich Fokina and Amber took place last. Although Davidovich Fokina fought back to even the match by winning the second set and pushed the decider to a tiebreak, after 2 hours and 32 minutes of intense play, Amber emerged victorious 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(4) to reach the final.

With this, both top two singles seeds have been stopped at the semifinals. Mahach and Amber will face off for the title tomorrow. Regarding their head-to-head record, Amber won their only previous meeting at the 2024 ATP500 Tokyo event.

(Written and edited by Dato, images courtesy of Visual China)