Stefanos Tsitsipas overcame early struggles that saw him almost lose the opening set to defeat
Andrey Rublev in straight sets at the
Roland Garros and reach the semifinal.
Stefanos Tsitsipas had to overcome some early struggles to defeat Andrey Rublev in just under two hours reaching the semifinal by doing so. The match was a strong one for Tsitsipas who moved past Rublev quite comfortably 7-5 6-2 6-3. The Greek started the match unconvincingly having to save break points early. After he saved the first ones he could not hold his serve midway through to set which gave Rublev the 5-3 lead. When he finally settled he broke Rublev when he served for the set which started a run which ended with Stefanos winning the first set 7-5.
After he won the first set Stefanos started playing even better and more aggressively. Rublev looked depleted and worse and worse as the match went on. He did play a lot of tough matches in the earlier rounds and the tiredness caught up to him in this match as he could not match the Greek's intensity. The 2nd set was won easily with 6-2. The 3rd was more of the same as Rublev fended off Tsitsipas early but ultimately surrendered his serve.
Tsitsipas continued playing his game being simply fresher and more ready and alert than Rublev. He took the 5-2 lead which proved enough. Rublev saved one match point on his serve at 5-2 to make it 5-3. But that was all from the Russian who lost the next game and match.