Tsitsipas excited to play Ruud in Toronto quarterfinals saying 'looking forward to the battle'

Stefanos Tsitsipas celebrated his 23rd birthday in Toronto after his match against Khachanov and the Greek received a cake upon completion of the match.

The crowd at the Aviva Centre fittingly sang 'Happy Birthday' as the Greek smiled looking at the cake. The celebration came after a very strong showing against Khachanov whom the Greek defeated in straight sets to move on to the quarterfinals. Waiting for him there is a man who defeated him a couple of months back in Madrid.

Asked about facing Casper Ruud, Tsitsipsa said:

"Casper is a player that has been developing very good recently. He had an amazing clay-court season. He's someone that serves very well, has a very good serve-and-first-ball pattern that works really well for him. I think he's probably one of the best players out there to have the serve and first ball inside the three first shots that he hits. It's definitely something that I'm going to have to pay attention to, and apply more pressure towards that."

Their only match so far was played at the Madrid Open this year with Ruud winning comfortably. The Greek player struggled with the serve - forehand combination of Ruud who was clinical that day. On hard courts, the Norwegian will be able to employ the same weapons however he is not as natural of a mover on this surface.

That should give Tsitsipas more chances to break his serve. Stefanos recapped his thoughts with:

"[I am] looking forward to that battle. We have played with each other in the past. Not an easy guy to play against. Looking for a change, looking for a switch-up this time."