Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, 21, defeated German second seed Alexander Zverev, 22, with a win of 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 in the semi-finals of the China Open in Beijing on Saturday. The young gun will advance to the final with Austrian top seed Dominic Thiem on Sunday.

The match was not without its breaking points, and Mr Zverev could not contain his nerves and smashed his racket on the ground several times. However Tsitsipas remained cool, winning 12 points in a row to take a 3-1 lead. The late surge from Zverev was not enough to keep victory away from the Greek player.

READ MORE: Who is Stefanos Tsitsipas? And why are Greeks making so much noise about him?

This is the first time in the China Open that the top four seeds played in the semi-finals. Furthermore, Thiem,  Zverev, Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov were clustered between five and nine in the rankings, clustered in age from Thiem’s 26 to Tsitsipas’ 21, with three of them were already sitting within the top-eight qualifying area for the ATP Finals.

READ MORE: Nick Kyrgios on probation: can controversial athletes sell a sport or are they bad for the business?

Wow. And just to think they were teammates 2 weeks back!
So.. it's Dominic Thiem v Stefanos Tsitsipas in the China Open final!
Again, teammates 2 weeks back… Feels weird. #ChinaOpen #ATP https://t.co/9RKeLj1vzw

— Yesh (@yeshwinj) October 5, 2019