Regardless of if he wins the Dubai Tennis Championships or not, this week could be one that Stefanos Tsitsipas will remember for the rest of his life.
Ranked 82nd in the world a year ago, the Greek is now knocking on the door of entering into the world’s top 10. His dream of achieving the milestone received a boost on Thursday following his quarter-final win in Dubai. Taking on Hubert Hurkacz, who defeated top seed Kei Nishikori earlier in the tournament, Tsitsipas prevailed 7-6(4), 6-7(1), 6-1. Making it the seventh consecutive match he has won on the tour.
“It was frustrating,” atptour.com quoted Tsitsipas as saying afterwards. “But I knew that the crowd enjoyed the match. They probably wanted to stay a bit longer.”
A single win is now all that separates Tsitsipas from a place in the top 10. An impressive achievement for a player who is the third youngest in the top 100 after Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov. Tsitsipas is already the highest ever ranked player from his country since the ATP ranking system was introduced back in 1973.
“What it means? I’m thinking about it almost every day. I want it badly. I want it to happen very much,” he said about the prospect of breaking into the top 10.
“I know I’ll have to win a couple of crucial matches to get there. The point difference is pretty big. I’m going to have to dominate more.”
This year has already been a breakout season for the Next Gen star. At the Australian Open Tsitsipas scored back-to-back wins over Roger Federer and Roberto Bautista Agut to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Open. His best grand slam performance to date. Since then, he won his second ATP title in Marseille last week.
“It’s a good motivation, exactly, because I’m so close (to the top 10), to get it as early as possible,” he said.
“Me personally, I feel like I have the game to be there already, maybe even in the future. But it’s better if it happens as soon as possible. It’s better for me, for my confidence as well.”
Standing in Tsitsipas’ way will be France’s Gael Monfils, who recently defeated Stan Wawrinka in the Rotterdam final. The Frenchman also experienced a roller coaster quarter-final clash. Battling to a 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-2 win over Lithuanian qualifier Ricardas Berankis.
“Yeah, I think it’s a different match now. We’re not playing in altitude with heavy balls. It’s completely different. The court is pretty slow,” the fifth seed previewed of his clash with Monfils.
“I mean, we’re both serving really well. We have a similar game style. I guess I’m a bit more aggressive than him, but he’s much faster,” he added
Tsitsipas is currently tied at 1-1 in his head-to-head with Monfils.
