YOUTH WILL BE SERVED IN ROGERS CUP FINAL
Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas to play for title on his 20th birthday.
Opa! Smash some plates. High-kick into a Zorba sirtaki. Pass the ouzo. (Pass out from the ouzo.) Greeks gods, tennis gods, the whole panoply has been smiling down on Stefanos Tsitsipas, from A Taste of the Danforth, where he hung out for a bit on the weekend, to the Aviva Centre acropolis.
On his 20th birthday, he’ll be in the final of the Rogers Cup as an unseeded phenomenon. And come Monday, however Sunday turns out, he will be world No. 15, breaking into the top 20 for the first time.
At the end of 2017, he was a No. 91 outlier. Somewhere around magma level a year before that.
The Athenian overcame exhaustion, stress — he was pressured on just about every point — even the keen expectation of an adoring crowd, to prevail in three sets over Kevin Anderson on Semis Saturday, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (7).
Tsitsipas fended off all four break points he faced to keep his serve intact. He converted the only break of the match. He didn’t flinch — hardly — under the bombardment of a power server, most significantly inside the duress of a third-set tiebreak.
Anderson ran his opponent for miles around the court, side to side, front and back, not counting the extra kilometre or so Tsitsipas put on himself, pacing in amped-up circles before serving or preparing to receive. He was in perpetual motion, fist-pumping a winner, muttering over a missed shot and, at one point, making a locomotion at his temple after stutter-stepping back to deuce on a forehand that caromed off the top of the net. Living la vida loco, in T.O. A giddy-crazy week it’s been for a young man making his bones on the ATP tour, into just his second Masters 1000 — he lost to Rafael Nadal at the Barcelona Open in April — having knocked off four of the top 10 seeds in Toronto, the youngest player to pull off that trick since the tour was established in 1900.
Auf Wiedersehen Dominic Thiem. Zbogom Novak Djokovic. Proschay Alexander Zverev. Ta Anderson.
“Four wins against top-10 players, I would never have imagined that I could pull this out in a single tournament. It’s just … we’re not used to that. I don’t know if I got lucky with all those players but somehow it happened that I played four top-10 and managed to beat them, which is a huge achievement for me and for my game.”
He bowled himself over too, it would seem, quite visibly staggered by it all. In a good way, of course. But in a kind of wondrous stupor.
So, at the end of the match yesterday, after firing an ace at 7-7 before converting his third match point of the deciding tiebreaker, after Anderson’s overcooked return sailed long, after two hours and 48 minutes, after all that knife-edge drama, after sling-shooting his pink headband into the stands, Tsitsipas sank into a chair and shook his head — an I’m-not-worthy gesture — as the crowd leapt to its feet in ovation.
Pointed to himself, pointed a finger at the fans: Not me, you!
You can’t cook up that kind of charisma. This boy-man has it naturally.
Then he scrawled a message on the courtside TV camera lens: “It never gets easier. You just get better.”
From start to end, though, there was scarcely a stretch when Tsitsipas didn’t appear under siege. He doesn’t yet have the strength, perhaps, of a fully grown man. He was panting and gasping to return slices down the line, skidding crosscourt, racing forward to volley. Five matches in six days. “I was exhausted before that match already,” he admitted. “I think you could see that from my face when I was playing the match.
“I hoped that things would go my way but I was exhausted. It’s amazing, how much physically I can stand this. It’s not easy at all.”
Tsitsipas worked himself into a minibreak in the first set tiebreaker, up 4-1, but then mis-hit into a trio of errors and looked really gassed as Anderson struck for six points in a row. That single break of the match made the second set easier to manage, with Anderson failing to convert a brace of break-point opportunities at 3-4.
In the third, Tsitsipas played further behind the baseline, Rafa style, to absorb Anderson’s serves — also getting more torque into his return against the 32-year-old.
But at no juncture was there clear dominance by either player, just point-to-point edginess.
“He played some really good tennis, especially when it mattered the most,” said the South African. “He didn’t miss a first serve.”
Tsitsipas watched two match points of his own disappear in that third-set tiebreak. He double faulted on the first one, Anderson hit a winner on the second.
“If I tell you something now, you won’t believe it,” the victor told reporters, as if everyone were being let in on a secret. “It was 6-4 when I double-faulted, right? In my head, it was 5-3. I looked at the scoreboard and then I understood. Oh s—t. It was 6-5, it was match point.”
Struck for a wicked backhand winner to avert elimination. “Yeah, it takes guts to make this shot.”
He is not falsely modest. “I’m playing amazing.”
He knows he’s good, verging on great, sidling up to audacious superstardom. “I feel like my forehand is on fire at this moment.”
This past week had taught the teenager — as of deadline Friday night — something about himself as well.
“That I’m capable of doing anything on the court, beating any opponent.”
Except maybe when to holster his line-call challenges. He was 0-fer on those Saturday, used them up too soon, and could only grimace and suck it at 1-2 in the second. They were all gone early in the final tiebreak.
“Well, it’s all my dad’s fault,” Tsitsipas laughed. Dad-coach Apostolos, semaphoring instructions from the stands. “He told me to challenge on those two serves I hit. So I went for it and, unfortunately, both of them were out. His fault, not my fault.’’
Daddy dearest doesn’t always know best. Snorted something about getting a new coach with better eyes. Kidder kiddo.
Tsitsipas was sore and utterly spent after the match, albeit, as always, playful with the media and happy to yak-yak-yak. He promised he’d have a second wind, gusting him onto centre court for Sunday’s final.
“Last match. It doesn’t matter if I’m going to die. I’m just going to give it my best shot.”