Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated world number 18 Alex de Minaur of Australia in straight sets to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2019 Rolex Paris Masters, where he will face world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia.
Tsitsipas, seeded seventh in the tournament, received a bye in the opening round. In the second round, the Greek beat American Taylor Fritz (world number 33) 7-6(3) 6-3. In today’s third round, Tsitsipas defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-3 6-4, earning his fifth win in six matches over the Aussie at the professional level. Tsitsipas is now guaranteed to move up from his current ranking of seven to number six in the world in next week’s rankings.
Tsitsipas has been incredible on serve this tournament, only facing two break points through two matches. Against Fritz, Tsitsipas served 13 aces, one double fault, and won 82% of points on serve. Against de Minaur, Tsitsipas hit 11 aces, zero double faults, and won 84% of points on serve.
Tsitsipas’ quarterfinal opponent will be Serbian Novak Djokovic, the current world number one. Their head-to-head record is 2-1 in favor of Tsitsipas, who won their last meeting which took place just three weeks ago in Shanghai. In fact, Tsitsipas won both of their two previous meetings on hardcourts. It must be noted, however, that Djokovic is a four-time Paris Masters champion. The winner of the match will face an unseeded player in the semifinals, either Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov or Chile’s Cristian Garin.
The 21-year-old from Athens also competed in the doubles event in Paris, teaming up with Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi. Unfortunately, they fell in the first round to the all-Russian duo of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, 3-6 6-4 10-5.
by Andrew Stamas
