Three years after traveling to the ATP Finals as a hitting partner to the top professionals, Stefanos Tsitsipas is leaving the tournament as champion.
Tsitsipas on Sunday rallied to beat Dominic Thiem 6-7 (6/8), 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) for the biggest title of his career, becoming the youngest champion at the season-ending event in 18 years.
“I remember myself watching this event on TV and thinking: ‘Oh, these guys have done an insane year to be playing here, and now I’m in the position to be champion, so it feels awesome.’” said 21-year-old Tsitsipas, who was making his first appearance at the tournament.
Photo: Reuters
It has been quite a journey for Tsitsipas, who first met Thiem at the O2 Arena in 2016 when he was the world’s top-ranked junior and was invited to be a hitting partner for the ATP Finals participants.
“That is unbelievable,” Tsitsipas said when reminded of that day. “I just remembered [that], first time I met Dominic was I came here as a sparring partner. I think my first hit was with Dominic. It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? We are now facing each other in the final.”
It was quite a final, too.
The Greek bounced back from dropping a tight first set by racing out to a 4-0 lead in the second, then held off the Austrian’s comeback in the third.
Tsitsipas could not capitalize on another early break and a 3-1 lead in the deciding set, but won the final three points of the tiebreaker, clinching the win when Thiem sent a return wide.
“I missed some very close balls in the tiebreak, but I cannot do anything now about it. It was a great match from both of us,” Thiem said.
The win caps a breakthrough season for Tsitsipas, who reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open, won two ATP Tour titles and became the first Greek man to break into the top 10.
He also leaves London with US$2.6 million for the win and joins a group of young players — including last year’s ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev and US Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev — who are seen as the top challengers to the Big Three of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
The Greek has already grown quite the fan base, partly because of a Bjorn Borg-style haircut and partly because of an aggressive playing style that is a bit old-school with frequent forays to the net.
“He’s great for tennis, because he has a very attractive game style, one-handed backhand, comes in a lot,” Thiem said. “It’s great that he’s up on the top. It’s great that he’s going to fight for the big titles in the future. I’m 100 percent sure of that. I’m also very sure of the fact that I can challenge him in every single match we’re going to play. I really hope that we’re going to have a lot of big matches coming, the two of us.”
Thiem beat both Federer and five-time winner Djokovic in the group stage, but lost another big final after twice finishing runner-up to Nadal at the French Open.
However, this one was much closer than his losses to Nadal, which made it tougher to swallow.
“That’s why it’s probably mentally the most brutal sport existing, because you can play such a great match and end up losing in the championship match,” Thiem said. “From that point of view, it’s a very disappointing loss, very hard to digest, but on the same hand, I had some amazing wins also.”
It is the fourth consecutive year that there has been a first-time champion at the ATP Finals, following wins by Andy Murray in 2016, Gregor Dimitrov in 2017 and Alexander Zverev last year.
Earlier, French duo Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert won the doubles title by beating Raven Klaasen of South Africa and Michael Venus of New Zealand 6-3, 6-4.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
WORLD SERIES: ‘The individuals that were involved in that last night was a very small segment of the east Los Angeles community,’ the Los Angeles county sheriff said Rowdy crowds took to the streets of Los Angeles after the LA Dodgers won the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, setting a city bus on fire, breaking into stores and lighting fireworks. A dozen arrests were reported by police on Thursday, but officials said that most fans celebrated peacefully. Video showed revelers throwing objects at police in downtown LA as sirens blared and officers told them to leave the area on Wednesday night after the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the MLB World Series at Giants Stadium in New York. Another video showed someone standing atop
RSS