Original title: Defending champion Tsitsipas missed Monte Carlo Masters semi-finals
Xinhua News Agency, Paris, April 14 (Xiao Yazhuo) The defending champion and second seed Tsitsipas lost to the American player 2:6 and 4:6 in the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Tennis Masters on the 14th. Fritz, missed the three consecutive championships.
Tsitsipas has won all three previous encounters with Fritz. However, in this game, Fritz’s performance was extremely strong, with a scoring rate of 80% in the first serve and 70% in the second serve. He won his first victory against Tsitsipas in only about 70 minutes.
“I think I played very well today, and beating him gave me a lot of confidence.” Fritz said, “It made me believe again that I can play well on clay.”
Fritz’s opponent in the semi-finals was the famous Russian player Lublev, who eliminated the biggest dark horse of this tournament, Struff from Germany, 6:1 and 7:6 (5) on the same day.
Facing Struff, who is only ranked 100 in the world, Rublev easily won the first set 6:1. But in the second set, encountering the opponent’s stubborn resistance, Struff blasted 17 winning points in this set, dragging the game into a “tie-break”. But Rublev held his ground and scored two points in a row until 5:5 in the “tie-break” to win the game.
“My performance was okay throughout the game, except for a few short moments because of emotional fluctuations. Good job,” Rublev said.
The other semi-final will be between Italian Sinner and Danish starlet Rooney.
The 19-year-old Rooney eliminated third-seeded Medvedev 6:3 and 6:4 on the same day. This is his second time entering the semi-finals of the Masters. Sinner defeated Musetti, who eliminated the top seed Djokovic in the previous round, with two 6:2 in an Italian “civil war”.