By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday June 15, 2023
Richard Gasquet notched his 600th ATP win by defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas on the grass in Stuttgart.
Photo Source: TTV
Richard Gasquet’s first ATP win came over two decades ago, in Monte-Carlo in 2002. He was a fresh-faced 15-year-old at the time. Over 21 years later, the Frenchman is still the youngest player to ever win a main draw match on the ATP Tour.
And he’s still going strong…
On Thursday in Stuttgart the soon to be 37-year-old notched his 600th career win, 7-6(8), 2-6, 7-5 over top-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas to reach the quarterfinals at the Boss Open.
“I’ll be 37 in two days,” Gasquet said. “Of course it’s a great victory.”
Gasquet also nabs his first Top 10 win on grass since defeating Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon in 2015. The World No.55 will face Jan-Lennard Struff in the last eight at Stuttgart.
Gasquet, 600-378 lifetime, joins Rafael Nadal (1068), Novak Djokovic (1058) and Andy Murray (725) on the list of active players to have hit 600 wins.
The former World No.7 is France’s all-time Open Era match win leader.
"It's a big achievement for me," Gasquet said. "It's incredible to achieve it, I've been 20 years on the tour. It's big for me, of course I'm very happy with this number but I will try to win some more."
Gasquet withstood 19 aces from Tsitsipas and converted two of 10 break points to improve to 2-1 over the fifth-ranked Greek. He converted his fifth match point of the 12th game to lock up the victory in two hours and 17 minutes.
Gasquet saved the only two break points he faced in the final set, one while serving at 1-1 and the other while serving at 3-3.
The Frenchman also saved a set point in the opening set tiebreak, before converting his third to take a one set to love lead.
Tsitsipas dominated the middle set but could not build on the momentum in the third.
The Greek drops to 31-10 on the season, while Gasquet improves to 12-13.
The quarterfinals are now set in Stuttgart. Here is how they stack up: