Stefanos Tsitsipas has become the king of comebacks at the Indian Wells tournament in California, clawing his way back from a first set loss yet again.
The second seed played a rather erratic two hour and 46 minute game against Australian Alex de Minaur, making 40 unforced errors, eight more than his opponent’s.
Tsitsipas managed to win 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, finishing with 34 winners, two more than De Minaur.
The 23-year-old secured the break and held set point on serve twice, however De Minaur was able to claim the points, force another tie-break.
Tsitsipas jumped to 3-1 in the deciding set, after both players failed to consolidate a break of serve throughout the opening two sets. Eventually the Greek tennis star tired his Aussie opponent out, with De Minaur cramping up during his serve
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“I feel like today’s game I was mostly pushing against myself rather than my opponent and it was one of those matches where I really had to get to the limit and show what I’m capable of when I’m in the red zone,” Tsitsipas said during his post match interview.
“That was incredible the way I just stayed in the match. I had to go through so many difficulties in order to find a solution and I executed towards the end of the match.”
The Greek tennis star will face Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili tomorrow morning at 5:00am AEDT.
“I know there are a lot of seeds, which play great tennis. My biggest priority is to play my best against any player regardless of the ranking or status,” he said.
“This week has been a difficult journey with lots of battles, two three-setters so far, so this is something I’m going to take as a learning experience and use it for something better in the tournament.”