Thompson and Purcell continue super season in Turin

The all-Australian pairing of Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell have reached the semifinals at the ATP Finals, the first time since 1999 when Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde achieved that feat.

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After winning their opening round robin match against no. 3 seeds Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic , the Australians lost to Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten in round 2 to setup a must win match against the no. 2 seeds of Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.

The Sydneysiders won an epic first set tie-breaker to take control of the match. Four times they fought off set points in the tiebreaker, to finally claim it 16-14.

In the second set the Australians repeated what they did in the first set, getting an early break and leading 3-0.

This time not letting their opponents back into the set.

The Australians booking their semifinal spot after a 7-6(14), 6-3 victory.

“I think they’ve achieved a little bit more than us, probably a bit better than us, but we’re only just getting started,” Thompson said.

“We couldn’t be happier. We played a great match, it was clean. Our first set probably should have gone our way, I missed a duck forehand there to go up 5-2 [in the tiebreak] but that tiebreak was something like I’ve never played before. So to come out on top and steal the momentum, it’s a pretty good feeling.”