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Greeks at the Australian Open


Dutch Eagle

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Stefanos Tsitsipas, current ranked #80, will face Canadian Denis Shapovalov, #50 in the first round of the men’s tournament.

I did not know him but here are some trivia about him:

Tsitsipas has won a total of five ITF singles Futures titles as well as six ITF doubles Futures titles so far in his career. His main career highlights include being the junior number 1 in the world.Tsitsipas has also had many successful matches on the junior tour, winning The Boy's Wimbledon doubles event with his partner Kenneth Raisma in 2016.

Tsitsipas is the son of a Greek father (Apostolos Tsitsipas) and a Russian mother, former pro-tennis player Yulia Sergeyevna Salnikova. His grandfather, Sergei Salnikov, was a Soviet football player and manager. He is 19 years old.

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we put all our eggs in the Baghdatis basket for another year! Won his 1st round match in straight sets against a qualifier. He plays his 2nd round match tomorrow against the 30th seed Rublev

Will be interesting to watch Tsitsipas this year, great achievement for him being the top 100 at just 19. Still very raw and young but hopefully he can have a good year and move his way up the rankings.

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  • 11 months later...

The 2019 tournament has started.

#14 seed Tsitsipas won in the first round against Italian Matteo Berrettini: 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 and 7-6.

Unseeded Maria Sakkari won her opening match against #22 seed Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia: 6-1, 3-6 and 6-2.

Next opponents:

Viktor Troicki, a qualifier, from Serbia for Tsitsipas.

Astra Sharma, also a qualifier, from Australia for Sakkari.

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Great start for them both! Good to see the Greek youth keep the tradition going and vocally supporting both players. Us oldies are far too old for that now (25 in a few days ?)

Troicki is a former top 15 player so could be a tricky match-up for Stefano. If all goes to plan he'd be lining up in the fourth round against the Goat Roger Federer, still 2 rounds to go before that eventuates. 

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Tsitsipas in round 3 after beating Troicki 6-3, 2-6, 6-2, 7-5. Next opponent: #19 seed Nikoloz Basilasjvili from Georgia.

Sakkari in round 3 after beating Sharma 6-1, 6-4. Next opponent #15 seed Ashleigh Barty, another Aussie.

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Both starting in a few mins local time. 

Tennis Australia playing both Greeks at the same time to minimise the support for Sakkari, who's playing Australia's great white hope Ash Barty. They were always anti-Greek fans and the chanting. They used to throw us out for just coughing in their direction

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Tsitsipas does what he has to. Through to the 4th round where we will now take on Federer. Mission accomplished for him, beaten who he should have. He'll now have a free swing at Federer and anything he achieves beyond that is a bonus. 

Bravo Stefane!

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Great result for Stefanos. He can challenge Roger now. Difficult but not impossible. He has beaten a lot of top 10 players last year. Even 4 of them in just one week in Toronto. And in the Hopman Cup he just lost with two tie-breaks against Federer and beated him with Sakkari in the mixed doubles.

Sakkari’s opponent is strong. I incidentally saw her last week playing the final in Hobart. No need to be ashamed of this result. On the contrary: this must give confidence.

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Great win for Tsitsipas.

Many in the tennis world predicted that Tsitsipas was ready to take the next step and beating an all time great shows that.

Men's tennis is very difficult to win each round. So much depth. 

How he handles this win in a big tournament will be interesting to watch.  He now plays R.B. Agut (#22) who beat the number 6 seed Cilic.

Tsitsipas (#14) should be a slight favourite and a win puts him in the semi-finals probably against Nadal.

Unlike many tennis players, Tsitsipas has a game worth watching (like Feds and Nadal). Many of the new players are just huge guys with big serves.

Good luck to him the rest of the way. Greeks around the world will be watching.

 

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Bravo Stefane!

He is the first Greek ever in a quarterfinal of a Grand Slam and he is heading to a position close to the top 10 of the ATP-ranking as his quarterfinal guarantees him 360 valuable points and others lose theirs from last year(s).

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Unfortunately the fairy tale came to an end tonight. Stefanos was dismantled by Nadal 6-2, 6-4 6-0. Was always going to be tough and so it proved. Regardless he has had a magnificent tournament and has proven to the world that he is not far away taking the next step and competing for Grand slams. There's a huge year coming up for him. 

Not only that he got the whole nation talking about tennis and watching the game. The sport will continue to grow in Greece if he continues this way and honestly i can only see him getting better

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Despite the fact he is only 20 years old and up against an elite player like Nadal, I am a bit disappointed he didn't gave much of an effort in the 3rd set after losing to first 2. But still, what a great run by him. I see a bright future in Tsitsipas. I guess I have to root for Djokovic to win it all. ??

Edited by Molon Lave
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Nadal played incredibly well to be fair.

Big year ahead for Stef. It was a fun 2 weeks here, took us back to the mid 2000s with euro/baghdatis type scenes.

I believe Tsitsipas is the real deal. But its no coincidence his 2 best performances have come in Melbourne and Toronto where he received a lot of Greek support and he even commented that both tournaments felt like he was playing in Athens. He really feeds off the fans so when he comes to play in your city make sure you all come out in force, particularly later this yr at the montreal masters and the US Open at flushing meadows.

Edited by Greekoz
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