Brilliant Stefanos Tsitsipas reaches Millennium Estoril Open final
The Greek player moves on to his sixth ATP final in just one year.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is the first player to reach the singles final at Millennium Estoril Open. The 20-year-old player won an outrageous semifinal against David Goffin 3-6, 6-4 and 6-4.
Anxiously awaited for many, the promising match didn’t disappoint: throughout two hours and 19 minutes, there were dozens of moments worthy of applause from both sides. Afterall, we’re talking about two of the best players of the moment providing a true show before a fully packed Estádio Millennium.
The young Greek – whom had put an end into João Domingues’s historic journey in the quarter-finals – was the one to have a better start. Goffin had to face three break points in his two first service games, but the Belgian player performed impeccably in order to save them and even more when he had the chance to counter-attack: it only took him one opportunity to consummate the break that made him go through the opening set.
In a high voltage match, the pace barely got lower. Both players demonstrated to have their homework done in order to explore each other’s weaknesses, but the service section revealed itself a little bit tricky. In such a way that the second set brought us seven breaks out of ten games, right before being taken by the first seed Tsitsipas, whom managed to improve his serve percentages in the final stretch so he could have a say in this enthusiastic discussion.
When it came to the decision, either Tsitsipas our Goffin set the bar high. Their serves weren’t a weak point as in the set before anymore. With the unroll of the score, it became clear that the first player to harm other’s serve would raise his chances of putting his name in the final. And that was exactly what happened: in the ninth game, the greatest Greek tennis player of all time got the necessary break to seal the win while serving in the following game.
Achieving third consecutive win at Clube de Ténis do Estoril, Stefanos Tsitsipas is now for the sixth time in his career in a final of an ATP event – all of them held over the last twelve months, since a year ago he came to Portugal a few hours after being defeated by Rafael Nadal at Barcelona ATP 500.
His opponent next Sunday at 3:30 pm local time will come out of the match between Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (the 19-year-old qualifier who is performing brilliantly in the tournament) and lucky loser Pablo Cuevas.
