Twelve points, three service games, none dropped
The Winston-Salem Open final will be contested by the third and fourth seeds, and the two of them arrived there by opposite routes on Friday. Only one had to play a full match.
Ignacio Buse beat Benjamin Bonzi 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in 1 hour, 51 minutes. The number worth holding onto sits in the decider. The 22-year-old Peruvian served three games in that set and won all 12 points he played on serve. He had already broken Bonzi to open the set, so the Frenchman spent the entire third set without reaching a single break point.
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Fery through without finishing
Arthur Fery’s evening lasted a set and three games. He broke James Duckworth at 4-4 to take the opener 6-4, and the Australian, who had held for a 2-1 lead in the second, stopped with an apparent right leg injury.
It is a soft way into a first ATP final, although Fery has already done the hard version this summer. The 24-year-old, who lives in London, reached the Wimbledon semi-finals as an unseeded wild card, a run that carried him to No. 37 in the rankings. Buse sits one place above him at 36.
New York is next for both
Neither gets long to enjoy it. The US Open starts next week and both men are in the singles draw, Buse as the No. 32 seed. Winning a tour title in the last week before a Grand Slam cuts two ways. It brings match sharpness and a trophy, and it costs the days of practice and rest that the seeds above them are taking right now.
The stakes differ. Buse already owns an ATP title, won in Hamburg in May, so Saturday is about doubling a career haul rather than starting one. Fery has never played a tour-level final at all. A Wimbledon semi-final sits on his record; a trophy does not.
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