Australian Thompson beats Shang to reach ATP final in Atlanta

Australian Jordan Thompson, seeking his second ATP title of the year, beat young Chinese qualifier Shang Juncheng 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 on Saturday to reach the Atlanta Open final.

After breaking in the eighth game of the third set, Thompson hit his 13th ace to reach match point and win the match after two hours and 21 minutes with a forehand winner.

The 30-year-old from Sydney, who is playing in his fourth career ATP final, won his first ATP title in February in Los Cabos, beating Norway’s Casper Ruud in the final.

He could move from 41st in the world rankings to the top 30 with a triumph in Sunday’s final at the first hard-court warm-up event in the United States ahead of the US Open, which begins on August 26.

Shang, a 19-year-old left-hander from Beijing, knocked out American top seed Ben Shelton in the round of 16 to reach his second career ATP semi-final, having lost his first to Russian Andrey Rublev in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Thompson will play for the crown against the winner of Saturday’s semi-final between Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka and France’s Arthur Rinderknech.

Nishioka, 28, is seeking his third career ATP title after the 2018 Shenzhen Open and the 2022 Korea Open in Seoul.

Rinderknech, 29, lost his only ATP final in Adelaide in 2022.

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