Stefanos Tsitsipas pocketed another unlikely upset in Toronto with a win over No. 4 seed and Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(7).
If Tsitsipas’s popularity was on the rise before, it is positively meteoric now. The affable Greek teenager (until his 20th birthday tomorrow) is the darling of the tournament, having dispatched the unlikely string of Dominic Thiem, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, and now Anderson en route to Sunday’s final.
Saturday’s match was a tightly-contested affair in all three sets. There were no breaks of serve in the first; Tsitsipas earned the first mini-break in the tiebreak, but Anderson earned it back at 3-4 and then won the next three points to take the lead.
The only break of the match came in the second. Tsitsipas snagged the lead with Anderson serving at 1-1 and held on to the lead–though not without some effort, especially in his service game at 4-3.
Anderson had plenty of looks on his opponent’s serve, particularly at 2-3, but Tsitsipas was up to the challenge. His mental toughness proved to be his greatest strength of all, as he weathered running out of challenges, a chair umpire overrule that went against him, and double-faulting on match point at 6-4. He hardly seemed fazed, as he came right back and hit a blistering backhand for 8-7.
The win–Tsitsipas’s fourth over a top-10 player this week–made history. He is the youngest man, at age 19 and 11 months, since 1990 (the ATP World Tour’s inception date) with four such wins at a single tournament.
After the match, Tsitsipas said, “I’m pretty sure the crowd didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect that.”
He went on to admit in his press conference that when he double-faulted on match point in the third set, he thought it was 5-3 and not match point at 6-4.
Kevin Anderson, always gracious in victory or defeat said of Tsitsipas, “It was an impressive effort; first player to beat four players in the top 10 like that–maybe ever.” And when asked what the Greek teen did so well, Anderson mused, “The biggest thing I was impressed with was his mentality.”
Tsitsipas awaits the winner of Rafael Nadal and Karen Khachanov in Sunday’s final.
nice one, Tsitsi
The crowd is in LOVE.