By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday April 23, 2021
Stefanos Tsitsipas stretched his winning streak to eight matches with another dominant performance at Barcelona.
Photo Source: : Manuel Queimadelos/ Quality Sport Images
Winning is a habit and Stefanos Tsitsipas is addicted at the moment. The Greek swept past Felix Auger-Aliassime on Friday in Barcelona, 6-3, 6-3, to set up a clash with 19-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner.
“I just felt in control,” Tsitsipas said after the match. “After a while I just felt that whatever I was doing was kind of working. I stuck to that—I was putting all of my concentration into my serve and I knew that opportunities would present themselves.”
The Greek saved all three break points he faced to increase his personal winning streak to four matches against the Canadian. Tsitsipas has completely changed the complexion of a rivalry that was owned by Auger-Aliassime in their younger days. The Canadian won all three of his ITF meetings against Tsitsipas in 2015-2016, and claimed their first two ATP-level meetings, but since then Tsitsipas has claimed triumphs at Shanghai (2019), Marseille (2020), Acapulco (2021) and Barcelona.
“I’ve grown as a player, and I’ve developed, and that’s the reason I think it has kind of paid off for me, so far,” Tsitsipas said. “Now I consider myself a more complete player.”
The Greek has now won his last 15 sets in succession and he improves to 25-5 on the season.
Last week’s Monte-Carlo champion will next look to quell the red-hot game of Sinner, who toppled Andrey Rublev, 6-2, 7-6(6) on Friday to become the youngest Barcelona semifinalist since 2005 when Rafael Nadal claimed his first of 11 titles at the event.
Sinner snapped a personal five-match losing streak against the Top 10 with his win—he had fallen to Novak Djokovic in straights sets in the round of 32 at Monte-Carlo last week.
Tsitsipas and Sinner have split two previous meetings with both meetings played in Rome (a win for Tsitsipas in 2019 and a win for Sinner last year).