Stefanos Tsitsipas took advantage of an off-form Daniil Medvedev to reach the Doha quarter-finals, winning 6–3, 6–4.
The victory means the Greek world No. 33 will contest an ATP quarter-final for the first time since last year’s Barcelona Open, ten months ago.
Tsitsipas played some solid tennis, particularly on his backhand, but he didn’t have to exert himself overly against Medvedev, who was lacklustre throughout.
The Russian fourth seed was often static from the baseline, enabling Tsitsipas to boss the majority of rallies. He also faced seven break points and was unable to make any inroads on the Tsitsipas serve in a day he will quickly want to forget.
The Greek will know that one victory does not represent a return to his peak level, yet reaching a first quarter-final in ten months is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.
Tsitsipas, who won 80% of points on his first serve, spoke after his victory about how his attitude and serve helped him seize control of the match.
“Well, a lot of grit. A lot of high intensity. Today I showed a lot of consistency. Just a willingness to stay out there and fight point by point. I was really glad with the way my tennis came together towards the end. I’m really happy with my serving. That gave me a lot of points and I was able to build a lot of confidence and a lot of authority starting with such good serves.”
The first set stayed on serve until the sixth game, when Medvedev made a couple of untimely errors and Tsitsipas pounced, converting his second break point of the game to break to 30.
With the Greek’s one-handed backhand in full flow, he served to love before forcing Medvedev to save two set points in the seventh game. Ultimately, Tsitsipas wrapped up the first set in just under 40 minutes with another solid service hold.
The second set followed a similar script, with the first six games going with serve before Tsitsipas struck in the seventh, converting a break point after another drastic dip in Medvedev’s level.
From there, all the Greek had to do was hold serve and, with little resistance from Medvedev, he wrapped up the second set in 40 minutes to set up a quarter-final against Russian fifth seed Andrey Rublev.
