Although fatigue has to be setting in for Stefanos Tsitsipas, no one other than Rafael Nadal and David Goffin has been able to stop him during this clay-court swing.
Coming off a runner-up performance in Barcelona, where he fell to the world No. 1 and 11-time Barcelona champion, Tsitsipas survived a second straight three-setter at the Estoril Open on Friday afternoon. The 19-year-old erased a set deficit, came back from a break down in the third, and trailed 3-0 in final-set tiebreaker before outlasting Roberto Carballes Baena 6-7(2), 6-2, 7-6(3) in two hours and 37 minutes.
Tsitsipas, who qualified in Monte-Carlo and beat Denis Shapovalov before succumbing to Goffin 7-6(4), 7-5, is 11-2 in 13 clay-court matches this spring–including especially impressive dirt wins over Dominic Thiem, Pablo Carreno Busta, Diego Schwartzman, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, and Estoril top seed Kevin Anderson.
After scraping past Anderson 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-3 in more than two hours on Thursday, it looked like Tsitsipas would finally run out of steam against Carballes Baena. But this play at 3-3 in the the final-set ‘breaker helped the Greek successfully cross the finish line.
at 3-3 in a final-set tiebreaker? about as clutch as it gets by @StefTsitsipas. pic.twitter.com/mKZqsv8BA8
— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) May 4, 2018
TSITSIPAS pic.twitter.com/UmkPkA9lrQ
— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) May 4, 2018
Next up for Tsitsipas is either Kyle Edmund or Joao Sousa. If Tsitsipas wins the Estoril title, he is projected to reach No. 33 in the world–and with Roger Federer out, that would put him in position for the No. 32 seed at the French Open.
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another tsweet win
Any relation to tsonga?
tsi-ng, tsi-ng a tsong-a
Well done Tsitsipas, a beautiful young player; I find him having better upwards potential than Shapo at this stage of their respective careers. He’s less error prone compared to Shapo, more patient and hits a great FH and not too bad SHBH too.
It looks like Tsitsipas took the good things out of making his first final in Barcelona against the greatest clay court player ever.
He needed to build on that result and it looks like he is doing just that.
Hope he continues to win 🤗 Go Stef!
He definitely is on borrowed time in this event tho. The crowd will be for Joao Sousa to make it to the final. But win or lose next match, it’s fantastic results for him the past month after MC, Barcelona, and gutting out these tough matches here in Estoril.
Stefanos is supposed to qualify for Madrid but….I can’t imagine him making it at this rate… He should rest and then do qualifying for Rome.
He’ll be meeting A Zverev at Madrid I think. I like the boy, he’s patient enough and fights till the end, has a big FH and doesn’t mind moving forward to the net.
I think he’ll have good results on clay, may be his best surface. I’m eager to see how far he’ll go at the FO, and how he plays on grass and HCs after gaining confidence with all the wins he has now and moving up to 40 in the rankings.
I think Shapo may be better than him on quicker surfaces; I saw highlights of their match at AO this season, Tsitsipas played from well behind the baseline whilst Shapo was way more aggressive than him.
Yes, LS.
Just looked at the Madrid draw and saw they gave Stefanos a WC! He had been been down for weeks to play Madrid qualies. Now he’ll have a chance to rest a bit. He’ll face a QF first round and hopefully go on so we get a Zverev vs Tsitsipas 😀
Agree, Shapo better on hard. For me Stef has been a complete revelation on clay — didn’t know much about him or expect him to climb the rankings so fast.
It’s an exciting clay season. Rafa hopefully wins another RG but I like seeing these young guys doing well on clay. Andrey Rublev was a junior RG champion, I think.
I don’t know how either will do on grass: Shapo or Stef.