News

Stefanos Tsitsipas reaches the Australian Open semifinal

Stefanos Tsitsipas beats Roberto Bautista Agut in 4 sets to play either Rafael Nadal or Frances Tiafoe in the semifinal

22 January 2019

Stefanos Tsitsipas doesn’t stop!

The Greek sensation wasn’t done after beating Roger Federer in the 4th round of the Australian Open, but he went 1 step further when playing the quarters against Roberto Bautista Agut.

The match

The Spaniard was in supreme form after recording a smashing 9-0 win-loss record in 2019 following his title in Doha and the quarters in Melbourne. Roberto didn’t achieve this feat because he had a couple of lucky draws. Instead, he had to beat the likes of Wawrinka, Djokovic, Berdych, Murray, Khachanov, and Cilic.

Tsitsipas didn’t start the match very well to be broken immediately in the opening game (0-1). Then the Greek began to find his range later on to break back in the 8th game (4-4) and the 12th game before winning the opener 7-5.

The Spaniard was extremely solid in the 2nd set on serve to drop just 5 points in total and, therefore, breaking Tsitsipas in 3rd game was enough for Roberto to win the second set 6-4.

Stefanos was in deep water (i.e., 1-break down) also in the 3rd set when he dropped his serve in the 5th game (2-3). However, later the 20-year-old won 5 consecutive games to grab a strong 7-5 4-6 6-4 1-0 lead.

[easy-social-share buttons="facebook" sharebtn_style="button" sharebtn_icon="plus" counters=0 style="button" message="yes" template="6" size="xxl" fullwidth="no" point_type="simple" facebook_text="Share if you like Stefanos Tsitsipas"]

There were no breaks in the 4th set with both players never conceding more than 1 point in their service games with the notable exception of the 11th game when the Spaniard had to save a match point. The affair went to the breaker, and a good start from Tsitsipas (3-0) set the tone before Stefanos won the match 7-5 4-6 6-4 7-6 (2). The match last 3 hours and 15 minutes and that was a really entertaining contest.

Stefanos will face either Rafael Nadal or Frances Tiafoe for a place in the final. That will be another “enormous” match for the Greek that he will count on the strong support of his compatriots.