London (AFP)
Stefanos Tsitsipas saved a match point and beat Andrey Rublev 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (8/6) on Tuesday at the London Masters, a victory which qualifies Dominic Thiem for the semi-finals.
The 22-year-old Greek, 6th in the world and defending champion, will play his qualification Thursday against Rafael Nadal (2nd), who had previously lost to Thiem.
The latter, a finalist in 2019, is the only player in the London 2020 group to have two wins in two matches.
On the other hand, Rublev (8th) who took part for the first time in the Masters tournament at the end of the season recorded two defeats in as many matches (after being swept away by Nadal on Sunday) and no longer has any chance of qualifying for the last square.
Completely extinct in the first set (concluded in 19 minutes) and in particular on his serve which is however one of the weapons on which he built his successful 2020 season, Rublev woke up in the second.
Service regained, he stood up to the Greek without ever threatening him on his own face-off. But Tsitsipas completely missed his last service game which he gave blank to the Russian, allowing him to equalize a set everywhere.
In the last set, at 1-1 Rublev saved with authority 5 set points and the two players progressed to 6-6, each keeping his face-off.
At 5/4, Tsitsipas had two serves to fold the game, but it was Rublev who scored those two points and offered himself match point on his serve.
Unfortunately, he double faulted and allowed Tsitsipas to come back to 6/6.
And in the process, the Greek Tsitsipas in turn offered himself a match point on his service, which he converted on a direct fault from Rublev.
© 2020 AFP