Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Open with a 7-6(2), 7-6(4) victory over John Isner on Tuesday evening. Tsitsipas survived yet another Isner match that had zero breaks of serve after one hour and 41 minutes.
The Greek was simply too good in the two ‘breakers during what was otherwise an even contest.
“Although I didn’t get any breaks,” Tstisipas reflected, “I still felt very comfortable starting the tiebreakers on both two sets. It is very difficult playing tall players like John. The serve is obviously the most difficult part. Throughout the entire match I think my return was at a very high level…. It is turning out to be a productive tournament. I’ve been working very hard to get to this point. Things have been working good.”
And this was certainly good preparation for the quarterfinals on Wednesday, because up next for the 22-year-old is another huge server — 6’11” American Reilly Opelka. Opelka advanced with a 6-3, 7-6(4) win over Matteo Berrettini 6-3, 7-6(4).
“That is quite crazy,” Tsitsipas said of his draw so far. “I will play three very tall players (also Kevin Anderson) in the span of four days. I played Reilly in my junior years and it’s great to have the opportunity to play him another time.”
There will be no more opportunities for match play before the U.S. Open for Andy Murray, although some rest might not be a bad thing. Following three-set wins over Frances Tiafoe and Alexander Zverev, Murray went down to Milos Raonic 6-2, 6-2 on Tuesday.
Raonic cracked 10 aces while double-faulting only twice and he did not drop serve a single time (he has not bee broken all tournament long), fighting off both of the break points he faced.
“It was poor,” Murray admitted when asked to assess his performance. “Yeah, didn’t play well. Was not a good day. I mean, the positives are I got three matches in. You know, physically I pulled up okay. Today, I don’t know. I don’t know if it was because I was fatigued or not, but I didn’t feel particularly tired but I certainly was hitting some pretty bad tennis shots. I’m not happy with that level of performance, to be honest.
“Clearly (I have) a lot of work to do on my game over the next few days before the US Open starts.”
Milos on fire
But then when he gets Djoko, he’s like a little robot. Tries to serve, gets nervous, errors start to cripple him and when he wins a rally it really seems like an achievement. So, will not invest any hope in Rao, although I would like to see him become a tough player.