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Wawrinka beats Tsitsipas in one of the toughest matches in this year’s French Open

Wawrinka battles past Tsitsipas

3 June 2019

The 3-time Slam champion Stan Wawrinka beat the Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 5-7 6-4 3-6 8-6 to enter the quarterfinals of the French Open.

The match lasted 5 hours and 9 minutes and arguably it is one of the best matches of the current edition of the French Open.

The audience at the Court Suzanne Lenglen and those watching on TV saw a truly tough match in which both the players put their best to cross the line.

The Match

In the first set both the players managed to hold on their serves and the set was decided in a tiebreaker which the Swiss won by 7-6.

In the second set, the competition was of the highest level. Both the players broke each other’s serve twice and were level at 5-5. In the next two games, the Greek put his best and won his service game and then broke the world no.28 to win the set 7-5.

The 3^rd set was a little easy for the Swiss who broke Tsitsipas once and that was enough to win the set 6-4.

In the 4^th set, Tsitsipas broke Wawrinka twice and faced a break to win the set 6-3.

The 5^th set was again a tough battle where both the players saved their service games to level at 6-6. The next 2 games were won by Wawrinka which included a break of the Greek’s serve. The scoreline of the match was 8-6.

After the match Wawrinka commented:

“Today we saw only one centimetre can change the winner, I never experience that kind of atmosphere here in Paris on the Lenglen, this is the reason why I still play tennis, and why I’m practicing every day to try to win big matches like that.”

Tsitsipas badly wanted to win this match and his desperation to win it truly showed by his actions on the Court. When he was match point down, he smacked on his forehead really hard and when he came for the interview, he could barely speak.

His emotions showed when he said the following in his interview:

“I feel exhausted, I never experienced something like this in my life. I feel very disappointed at the end, It’s a long time since I cried after a match, so emotionally it wasn’t easy to handle. I will try to learn from it as much as I can.”

Again, the Greek said:

“I was so close, so close. I gave him room to do whatever he likes, all those break points. So many break points. So many.”

The 28th ranked player will now play his close friend Roger Federer in the quarterfinals.