By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, November 3, 2023
Stefanos Tsitsipas soared past Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, landing in the Rolex Paris Masters semifinals for the second straight year.
Photo credit: Rolex Paris Masters
Stefanos Tsitsipas is peaking in Paris.
Beneath the Accor Arena roof, Tsitsipas soared past Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, landing in the Rolex Paris Masters semifinals for the second straight year while hitting another milestone moment.
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It was the 300th career victory for Tsitsipas (300-140 lifetime), who scored his 50th win of the season defeating Alexander Zverev yesterday to seal the sixth spot in the ATP Finals in Turin later this month.
Though the pressure of qualifying for Turin was off, Tsitsipas’ sense of urgency was on today.
The 25-year-old Greek struck 25 winners—10 more than Khachanov—won 11 of 14 trips to net and converted all three of his break point chances in a clean 80-minute victory.
Tsitsipas advanced to a semifinal showdown vs. former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov.
The 17th-ranked Dimitrov withstood 19 aces from Hubert Hurkacz posting a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 victory to reach the Paris semifinals for the first time since 2019.
Dimitrov has defused three explosive servers in succession—No. 3 Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Bublik and tournament ace leader Hurkacz—and now tries to solve Tsitsipas, who has won six of seven meetings against the Bulgarian.
“Amazing player. Nothing is for free against him as well,” Dimitrov said of Tsitsipas. “We’ve played multiple times—always very close.
“He’s an extremely aggressive player so I need to find a way around that and implement my game. I think that’s all I want to do. We both know what’s going to happen out there. We both know what to expect from each other. Those are the matches I want to play so I’m very excited.”
Commanding the center of the court today, Tsitsipas broke for a 3-1 lead and backed up the break for 4-1. Tsitsipas spun a diagonal forehand winner to cap a clean 40-minute first set without facing a break point.
Empowered by the one-set lead Tsitsipas scalded a slick one-handed backhand strike down the line breaking at love to start the second set.
The Australian Open finalist sped through eight straight points seizing a one-set, 2-0 lead.
Finding the range on his forehand, Khachanov unleashed a few massive forehand winners busting through a love break to level after six games.
Unfazed, Tsitsipas imposed his forehand battering out forehand errors from the 2018 champion to break at 15 for 5-4.
Tsitsipas flew through eight of the final 10 points prevailing in 80 minutes.
If the Tsitsipas vs. Dimitrov semifinal is as good as their wildly entertaining United Cup clash last January, Paris fans are in for a thrill ride.