TORONTO (AP) — Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton won Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the National Bank Open, setting up the first all-American semifinal in an ATP Masters 1000 tournament in 15 years.
The second-seeded Fritz beat No. 6 seed Andrey Rublev 6-3, 7-6 (4). He hit 20 aces, including one that finished off the match.
“It was clean,” Fritz said of his performance. “I’m happy with everything.”
Shelton, the No. 4 seed, then beat No. 9 Alex de Minaur of Australia 6-3, 6-4. The 22-year-old reached the semifinals of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament for the first time.
The matchup Wednesday between Fritz and Shelton will be the first time since Andy Roddick beat Mardy Fish at Cincinnati in 2010 that two American met in an ATP Masters 1000 semifinal.
Fritz won their only previous meeting in 2023 at Indian Wells.
“He’s a big-match player,” Shelton said. “He’s been carrying the flag for the United States in the big tournaments as of late. He’s clutch, serves well. We’re great friends.
“It’s a match that I’m really excited about.”
Andy Roddick was the last American men’s player to win a Grand Slam when he won the U.S. Open in 2003.
“I have no doubt that one of us is going to get it at some point,” said Shelton, who is ranked seventh. “Who knows who it is? You guys just got to wait and see … American tennis is in a really good place.”
Wednesday’s other semifinal will see top-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany, the 2017 tournament winner in Montreal, take on No. 11 Karen Khachanov of Russia. The final is Thursday.
Fritz came out firing in hazy and breezy conditions with three aces to win the first game. He then broke Rublev in securing the match’s first eight points.
The 27-year-old American, who sits fourth in the ATP Tour rankings and lost last year’s U.S. Open final to No. 1 Jannik Sinner, fired two more aces to go up 4-1 before serving out the set.
Looking for his 11th ATP Tour title — and second Masters 1000 crown — Fritz broke Rublev with the second set tied 4-4, but the Russian returned the favor to stay alive in the next game and went up 6-5 before Fritz forced the tiebreaker.
Fritz lost in the Wimbledon semis to No. 2-ranked Carlos Alcaraz, who along with a host of top players including Sinner, No. 5 Jack Draper and No. 6 Novak Djokovic all skipped this hard-court event expanded to two weeks in 2025.
Rublev lost in last year’s final to Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, when the event was played in Montreal. The 27-year-old from Moscow made the fourth round of both Wimbledon and the French Open.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Ben Shelton, of the United States, reacts after winning a point against Alex De Minaur, of Australia, during their quarterfinal match at the National Bank Open in Toronto, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
Andrey Rublev, of Russia, serves to Taylor Fritz, of the United States, during their quarterfinal match at the National Bank Open tennis tournament in Toronto, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
Taylor Fritz of the USA pumps his fist after breaking Andrey Rublev of Russia during their quarterfinal match at the National Bank Open in Toronto, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Laws that will make it illegal to create online sexual images of someone without their consent are coming into force soon in the U.K., officials said Thursday, following a global backlash over the use of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok to make sexualized deepfakes of women and children.
Musk's company, xAI, announced late Wednesday that it has introduced measures to prevent Grok from allowing the editing of photos of real people to portray them in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the move, and said X must “immediately” ensure full compliance with U.K. law. He stressed that his government will remain vigilant on any transgressions by Grok and its users.
“Free speech is not the freedom to violate consent," Starmer said Thursday. “I am glad that action has now been taken. But we’re not going to let this go. We will continue because this is a values argument.”
The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI and freely accessed through his social media platform X, has faced global scrutiny after it emerged that it was used in recent weeks to generate thousands of images that “undress” people without their consent. The digitally-altered pictures included nude images as well as depictions of women and children in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses.
Critics have said laws regulating generative AI tools are long overdue, and that the U.K. legal changes should have been brought into force much sooner.
A look at the problem and how the U.K. aims to tackle it:
Britain's media regulator has launched an investigation into whether X has breached U.K. laws over the Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed. The watchdog, Ofcom, said such images — and similar productions made by other AI models — may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.
The problem stemmed from the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall cited a report from the internet Watch Foundation saying the deepfake images included sexualization of 11-year-olds and women subjected to physical abuse.
“The content which has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal,” she said.
Authorities said they are making legal changes to criminalize those who use or supply “nudification” tools.
First, the government says it is fast-tracking provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act making it a criminal offense to create or request deepfake images. The act was passed by Parliament last year, but had not yet been brought into force.
The legislation is set to come into effect on Feb. 6
“Let this be a clear message to every cowardly perpetrator hiding behind a screen: you will be stopped and when you are, make no mistake that you will face the full force of the law,” Justice Secretary David Lammy said
Separately, the government said it is also criminalizing “nudification” apps as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.
The new criminal offense will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images. Kendall said this would “target the problem at its source.”
The investigation by Ofcom is ongoing. Kendall said X could face a fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation’s outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site.
Starmer has faced calls for his government to stop using X. Downing Street said this week it was keeping its presence on the platform “under review."
Musk insisted Grok complied with the law. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he posted on X. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
FILE - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
