Stefanos Tsitsipas was in no mood to hang around in Rotterdam on Thursday.
The top-seeded Greek sent out a clear statement to the rest of the field with an all-round display to beat Belarusian Ilya Ivashka 6-4, 6-1 in one hour, 11 minutes in the second round of the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament.
Tsitsipas was particularly pleased with the level he reached when dominating the second set. “It’s a certain flow that you have to enter and it’s not easy to achieve that,” he said after the match. “With persistence and trying to get in the zone with your mind, these are some of the things that help you get to a really high level of intensity and play.
“Today I had opportunities from the beginning of the match, a few break points here or there, but I stayed calm, and I knew that if I continued with that kind of pace a few more opportunities were going to present themselves. They eventually did and I handled them better.”
It was Tsitsipas’ first meeting with Belarusian Ivashka, who enjoyed a stellar 2021 season during which he reached a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 43 and claimed his first ATP Tour title in Winston-Salem.
He came up against an opponent in an unforgiving mood in the form of Tsitsipas, however. The Greek reached the semi-finals in Rotterdam in 2021 (l. to Rublev) and his second-round display indicates he feels he has unfinished business at the ATP 500 event.
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Ivashka was under pressure from the start, Tsitsipas maintaining high levels of aggression to force five break points in the opening set. He was made to wait to convert one as the Belarusian showed some of the battling qualities that earned him 31 match wins in 2021 to stick with the Greek.
The constant struggle finally became too much in the tenth game as some loose groundstrokes from the World No. 48 handed Tsitsipas the game he needed to take the set.
The Greek was clinical throughout, finishing with 21 winners including nine aces as he overpowered his lower-ranked opponent. He roared into a 5-0 lead in the second set as Ivashka had no answer to the Greek’s brutal hitting.
Tsitsipas attributed his comfortable victory to a positive mentality right from the start of rallies. “[I played a] good first ball, really aggressive and I was able to stay close to the line, apply a lot of pressure from the very first balls that came to me,” said the Greek.
Tsitsipas’ quarter-final opponent will be Alex de Minaur, who defeated Mackenzie McDonald in his second-round match on Wednesday. The Greek will be looking to extend a 6-0 ATP Head2Head lead over the Australian.
“He [de Minaur] has a lot of intensity in his game, moves really well, so that is going to be the ultimate challenge against him,” said Tsitsipas. “[I will try] to put a lot of intensity from my side and approach this [match] with patience as well.”
Source Tennis – ATP World Tour
