HARARE, (The Southern African Times) – Fifth seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas beat Daniil Medvedev to face sixth seeded Alexander Zverev for a spot in the Roland Garros finals come Sunday.
The 23 year old Greek put up an impressive level of tennis to see off second seeded Medvedev 6-3, 7-6(3), 7-5 to make his second successive semi-final in Paris. This win means that he has made a third consecutive grand slam semi-final appearance, his second this year after making the Australian Open semis earlier this year.
Tsitsipas came to the tournament with 2 clay titles already in his bag after, winning titles in Lyon and Monte Carlo, which was his first 1000s Masters titles. He also has the most wins on the ATP Tour this season, with 38 wins and leads the ATP Kia Race to Turin with 3,360 points, meaning he is in fine form as he goes against the sixth seeded German.
Zverev booked his place in the semi-finals by bulldozing past Davidovich Fokina, winning 6-4 6-1 6-1.
After a rather slow start which saw both players playing in less than 45% of their first serves and absolutely no fluency in the opening set, Zverevmanaged to to break Fokina’s serve in the 10th game and seal the first set.
The pair held their serves in the first two games of the second set but Alexander would go on to win five games in a row to win the second set and two more games to take an early lead in the third set. He would go on to win the match in one hour and 36 minutes with impressive back court hitting and sealing the victory with a huge backhand winner.
Zverev and Tsitsipas are both looking to win their first major title in Paris, although one of them would have to go through a potential Nadal or Djokovic who are on the other side of the draw.
Stefanos leads the head to head 5-2 going into the semifinals showdown, one of those being their only clay court match in Madrid, 2019, which he won in three sets.
However, Zverev has won 15 career titles and 4 of them are Masters 1000s titles, which means he’s had more experience in big tournaments compared to his Greek opponent.
(Report Written and Compiled by Takudzwa Alufeyo)
