Stefanos Tsitsipas, fourth seeded at the Australian Open at 23 years old, has asserted that condition to stand today for the third time in the semifinals of the tournament.
The Greek has beaten Jannik Sinner 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, in 2 hours and 6 minutes. Sinner once again proved that he is very good at beating the players behind him in the ranking, but who does not have enough character to face situations of maximum pressure against the greats of the racket.
The little resistance of the young transalpine is measured in a statistic: zero ‘break’ balls for the 4/4 signed by his executioner.
Tsitsipas, who on November 25 went through the operating room to undergo elbow surgery, has recovered in record time. He used the ATP Cup as a test bench and at the Australian Open he has gone from less to more.
In fact, at the conclusion of the match, he confessed in the on-court interview that the doctor who operated on him in Switzerland (Frank), the same one who once intervened on Novak Djokovic, “He told me that he would not be ready to play here and I have taught him that he was wrong“. The Spaniard Fernando Verdasco also passed through the doctor’s hands last year for the same ailment.
Stefanos had dropped sets in all his matches except in the debut against the Swedish Mikael Ymer. In fact, it had taken the tiebreaker to knock out American Taylor Fritz in the round of 16.
Repeat semi-final
The Athenian will be measured in the penultimate round with the winner of the match between Daniil Medvedev (2) and Felix-Auger Aliassime (9).
In case you run into the Russian the confrontation of a year ago would be repeated at the same level of competition. Sinner, for his part, leaves Australia recovering his position in the ‘top10’, but with the pending issue of fighting for the title against the best in a ‘major’. He was unable to join his compatriot Matteo Berrettini, who will be Rafael Nadal’s rival on Friday.
