Tsitsipas made it to the quarterfinals at the Masters in Paris. After the win over Zverev, he is sure of the Tournament of Champions

Tsitsipas – Zverev 7:6, 6:4

Stefanos Tsitsipas he started this year with a final appearance at the Australian Open, and in August at a small event in Los Cabos, Mexico, he won his only trophy since last June. Although he cannot rate this season as particularly successful, he is still in the TOP 10 of the world rankings and has qualified for the prestigious Tournament of Champions for the fifth year in a row.

After the crisis in recent months, he caught on again in indoor conditions, and after Antwerp and Vienna, he can advance to the semifinals for the third tournament in a row. At the last Masters of the year in Paris, he started with a two-set win over the six-match unbeaten Félix Auger-Aliassim and did not even concede a set to the former finalist Alexander Zverev.

He adjusted the mutual balance of the Grand Slam finalists to 9:4 from his point of view. It was their first meeting since last spring, in which Tsitsipas on the seventh attempt he scored his first TOP 10 scalp of the year and also his jubilee 50th win of the season.

Match statistics. (@livesport)

He built up a 3-0 lead against the German No. 1, but at the beginning of the fifth game he probably got really stiff. The best Greek tennis player felt pain in his right leg and was treated for almost five minutes. In the end, he only won the opening act in a tie-break with a ratio of 7:2, despite already leading 5:2 and in the ninth game he had two set points on his own serve.

Also in the second set, he took away Zverev’s first serve and this time kept the lead. He already had his first match points on the return, but he didn’t use either of the two chances and had to close the match on his own serve.

To match his best at this venue as well as last year’s result, Greece’s top tennis player will attack against the 2018 champion to Karen Khačanov. He has won six of seven fights with the Russian, who still has a chance, albeit a very slim one, of qualifying for the Tournament of Champions. He failed only in the last one this year in Miami.

While Tsitsipas has secured his ticket to Turin, Zverev can still be overtaken by defending champion Holger Rune and Hubert Hurkacz. In addition, the German is not registered for the Met or Sofia next week and would need a wild card from the organizers.

Another quarter-final pair of the Paris Masters consists of Hurkacz s Grigor Dimitrov and Alex de Minaur fighting for the Tournament of Champions with Andrei Rublev. The latter will be decided in the duels between Novak Djokovic and Tallon Griekspoor and Daniel Altmaier and Run.

Sinner withdrew from the tournament due to fatigue

Jannik Sinner will not fight for the quarterfinals at the Masters in Paris. Champion of recent events in Beijing and Vienna he didn’t finish the opening match until around three o’clock in the morning on Thursday and was supposed to start the round of 16 from 5:00 p.m. the same day.

Alex de Minaur went through to the quarter-finals without a fight, who is this far in Masters tournaments only for the second time. The finalist of the August event in Toronto will challenge Andrey Rublyov in it.

The schedule of the match was criticized by tennis players and journalists even before the resignation of the best Italian in the rankings. “Well done ATP Tour, great way to help one of the best players in the world recover and be ready when he finished the previous match in 2:37. Fourteen and a half hours to recover. It must be a joke,” wrote Casper Ruud on the X network.

Sinner will enjoy a longer rest before the start at the Tournament of Champions in Turin, where Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Rubljov and Tsitsipas have already qualified. After that, he plans to fight for the salad bowl in the Davis Cup.

Djokovic – Griekspoor 4:6, 7:6, 6:4

Novak Djokovic unexpectedly stormed to victory over the Dutchman Tallon Griekspoorwhom he defeated only after more than two and a half hours of fighting 4:6, 7:6, 6:4.

In the first set, he did not maintain a 4:1 lead, and in the second set he had to fend off break points at 4:4 and 15:40. But he withstood the situation and forced a third act against the 23rd player in the world in the tie-break.

In it, he lost the advantage of the break in the eighth game after a double fault, and the fans started to riot a little insensitively. Djokovic applauded them ironically, and the atmosphere in the Berca hall thickened. However, this did not deter the experienced Serb, he subsequently ended the duel by winning eight fifteenths in a row.

“It was a crazy match, I had to let off a bit of steam. I have to praise Tallon because he handled the match very well and was close to winning” commented Djokovic. “I was hoping to take the second set to a tie-break and I tried to be patient in the third. It was an up-and-down match and I tried to find a solution that would work against my opponent.” added the world number one player.

In the quarterfinals, the six-time champion will see revenge for the defeat in last year’s final and this year’s failure on clay in Rome against the twenty-year-old Holger Rune (h2h 1:2). The Danish defending champion, who is coached by Djokovic’s former coach Boris Becker, beat the German twice 6:3 in the night’s round of 16 Daniel Altmaier and significantly strengthened his position in the fight for the premier start at the Tournament of Champions.

Results of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Paris

The article was originally published for Livesport Zprávy.