Sebastian Baez is establishing himself as a formidable opponent on hard courts which are quite different from his favoured clay courts and Tsitsipas was happy to escape against the Argentinian.
The Greek sensation became the first top-five men's seed to lose a
set this fortnight. The extra
court time came after a less than ideal build-up following off-season
elbow surgery. He finished it off with a bang to beat Sebastian Baez
7-6(1) 6-7(5) 6-3 6-4 in three hours, 22 minutes on a sun-kissed
afternoon at Margaret Court Arena.
Speaking after the match, he said:
"It wasn't easy. I'm glad I overcame that obstacle. Lots of fighting, a bit of swearing, but glad to be in the third round. It was a pretty hot day today but I tried to play with heart, and it paid out in the end."
Tsitsipas admitted to changing his tactics for the final two sets after being unhappy with how the match was going following the loss of 2nd set. He said:
"I tried to go for my shots a bit more. Certain moments I got a bit lucky with finding
the right depth and coming in. On the return, I tried to stay as close to the baseline as possible
which cut out time for him and push him back a little more. I think
those were some of the things I really tried to work on."