Alex de Minaur is out of the Italian Open after a straight-sets defeat to Greek world quantity eight Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Regardless of beating legend Rafael Nadal earlier this clay court docket season, Tsitsipas dispatched de Minaur 6-1 6-2 in 59 minutes to succeed in the Italian Open quarterfinals.
The Aussie was 3-0 down after 9 minutes and by no means recovered with the mercurial Greek exhibiting how good he could be on his day on clay.
Tsitsipas hit 15 winners to de Minaur’s 4, and made fewer unforced errors regardless of enjoying an aggressive recreation.
The important thing was the standard of Tsitsipas’s returns, de Minaur solely delivered six unreturned serves out of 40, received lower than half his factors on second service, and misplaced 5 of eight break factors on serve.
Tsitsipas will now play Chile’s Nicolas Jarry, who defeated Alexandre Muller 7-5 6-3.
The Greek is firming as a robust contender for this yr’s French Open.
Tsitsipas went all the way down to Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller within the 2021 French Open last, whereas additionally successful 3 times on the clay of Monte Carlo and reaching the finals of Masters in Rome and Madrid.
With Djokovic out and defending champion Dmitri Medvedev overwhelmed 6-1 6-4 by Tommy Paul in Tuesday’s shock outcome, Tsitsipas appears to be the person to beat on this occasion with former winner Alexander Zverev, who’s within the different half of the draw, the primary risk.
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AAP/ABC
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