By Chris Oddo | Friday February 22, 2019
Stefanos Tsitsipas has been daunting in his first two rounds at the Open 13 in Marseille. The top-seeded Greek has dropped just 21 points on serve in two matches and has yet to drop a set as he rolled into his eighth career ATP semifinal with a solid 6-4 6-3 takedown of Sergiy Stakhovsky on Friday.
Oddo: Ugo Humbert Has Proven His Game is ATP-Worthy at Marseille
The world No.12 appears to be on a mission after dropping consecutive matches at Sofia (Monfils) and Rotterdam (Dzumhur), and he was confident from start to finish against the tricky Ukrainian. He never faced a break point and needed just 68 minutes to pass the test after he converted a break in each set.
“It was a good match from beginning to end. I played smart, held my nerves,” Tsitsipas said, according to ATPWorldTour.com.
The Greek’s reward for powering through will be a fifth meeting with former World No.7 David Goffin on Saturday.
Goffin eased past Gilles Simon on Friday, 6-2 6-4.
The Belgian improved to 3-2 against Simon, converting three of ten break points and never facing one on his own serve.
Goffin is into the semi-finals at an ATP event for the first time since last August at Cincinnati. The 28-year-old, currently 24 in the world, has not played a final since reaching the title match at the ATP Finals in 2017.
The other semi-final in Marseille will be played by Ugo Humbert and Mikhail Kukushkin. Humbert, the only French player remaining in the draw, reached his first ATP semi-final with a straight-sets win over Matthias Bachinger on Friday.
Kukushkin, a veteran of nine ATP semifinals, knocked off Andrey Rublev 6-4 6-1.