When Benoit Paire is in the house, you’ll never know what is going to happen.
The Frenchman had one of his funny moments when he was facing Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarters in Washington. Benoit was rather annoyed in the first half of the 2nd set because Tsitsipas had to stop the play in a crucial moment as a shoelace broke. Benoit got ballistic and soon after he pretended to have the same problem to disrupt the Greek’s rhythm. Eventually, the trick didn’t work and Tsitsipas conquered the second set at love to win the match 7-5 6-0.
Stefanos explained what happened
The Greek commented:
“My laces are breaking on the last hole, when I’m sliding forehand side. My laces touch the ground. There’s a friction that causes the breakage of my shoelaces.”
Tsitsipas and his shoe problems
This is something that is happening frequently and the Greek admitted that he is quite upsetting for him. Stefanos commented
“In a way, he [Paire] was right [to be upset]. It has happened many times in the past. I’ve been struggling with it. I’m not doing it on purpose. Some people think I’m doing it on purpose. It always happens in crucial moments when I’m trying really hard to give everything on the court.
It’s very irritating for me to keep playing with a shoe that’s not tight. It can fall off at any moment during the rally. Once in Barcelona it happened.”
Talking about Benoit’s act, Stefanos commented, “That was funny. I didn’t know whether to laugh or keep a serious face. It was hilarious.”
It was nice to see that everything was forgotten at the end of the match and both had a good laugh about it.
H2H Tsitsipas – Kyrgios
Stefanos will face Nick Kyrgios in the semifinal. They have never played each other so far and this is expected to be a fantastic match.
