Davidovich Fokina snaps Shapovalov's winning streak in Acapulco SF thriller

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina has gone from four match points down to one match away from his first ATP Tour title at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC.

The unseeded Spaniard, who saved those four match points consecutively against Mattia Bellucci in the Acapulco first round, beat Denis Shapovalov 7-6(3), 7-6(1) on Friday to advance to his third tour-level final. After two epic sets full of twists and turns — each lasting more than an hour — Davidovich Fokina won eight straight points in a show-stopping final burst.

The No. 48 in the PIF ATP Rankings is competing in his first event since missing out on two championship points earlier this month in Delray Beach. His victory ended Shapovalov's eight-match winning streak, the longest run of the Canadian's career, which dated back to the start of his Dallas title run.

"The match was so tight," the Spaniard said after levelling the pair's Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 1-1. "The first set maybe he deserved it more. The second set I deserved it maybe. But at the end I didn't lose the fight against him because I was ready for everything at the end.

"It's not every day I'm in the semi-finals of [an ATP] 500. I'm very happy how I fought back for the first set and how I continued in the second set. It was not easy when he came back."

Courtside with Fokina 💪@AbiertoTelcel | #AMT2025 pic.twitter.com/YwKCKGrQVO

— ATP Tour (@atptour) March 1, 2025

Davidovich Fokina saved three break points at 4-1 down in the opening set and later stopped Shapovalov from serving out the set at 5-3 before dominating the tie-break. It was the Spaniard who had a break point at 4-1 in the second set, but Shapovalov hit a purple patch of shotmaking and pulled ahead 6-5 as Davidovich Fokina seemed to tire.

However, from 6-5, 30/30 on the Canadian's serve, Davidovich Fokina found a new gear and rattled off eight straight points behind a barrage of vicious forehand cuts from the baseline. 

Both men broke serve four times in the match, according to Infosys ATP Stats, with Davidovich Fokina converting on four of 10 chances. He will next face Tomas Machac in Saturday's final, with both men seeking their maiden ATP Tour title.

Machac advanced to his biggest career final — and his second overall (Geneva 2024) — with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 victory against Brandon Nakashima.

The eighth seed is the second Czech finalist in tournament history, after Jiri Novak won the 1998 title and finished runner-up in 1996 when the event was held on clay in Mexico City. Machac is also the fourth Czech ATP 500 finalist after Tomas Berdych (five times), Radek Stepanek (twice) and Jiri Vesely (once).

With the title, Machac could become the first Czech in the Top 20 of the PIF ATP Rankings since Tomas Berdych in June 2018. He is up three places to No. 22 this week in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, setting himself up for a new career high.