Tsitsipas and Bublik battle through to semi-finals at Open 13 Provence

Friday, 21 February 2020 at 19:22

Alexander Bublik and Stefanos Tsitsipas are the first players through to the semi-finals at Open 13 Provence in Marseille after both battling through.

Bublik is into his third ATP Tour semi-final of his career after defeating the fourth seed Denis Shapovalov 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in just over two hours.

The Kazakh ace reached two finals in 2019 at the Hall of Fame Open and the Chengdu Open and will now take on the Greek ace after another brilliant week. He saved four break points in the first set but his battling qualities were on display with the Canadian faltering to lose the first set.

In the second Bublik missed three opportunities to take a 4-2 lead and Shapovalov pounced all over that claiming the second set with his third ace.

It was nearly curtains for Bublik in the decider after letting a 2-0 lead slip but he was 5-3 up soon after with Shapovalov hitting a forehand wide and missing his chance. From there the former claimed the set and the match with a hold to love.

Tsitsipas, who is defending champion has looked good all week and was the class apart when he took on Vasek Pospisil and claimed a 7-5, 6-3 win to inflict a second defeat of the day for a Canadian.

It was a game that included 8 aces from the second seed with the difference for the most part being on two aspects of his game, his winning percentage was higher on both the first and second serve and also he took his chances on break point hitting 3/5.

Pospisil on the other hand was not even allowed an opportunity at one in a great performance from Tsitsipas who will now look to take one step closer to defending his title.

https://twitter.com/TennisTV/status/1230918273711136771?s=20

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