A year after being “expelled” by the organizers due to his refusal to get vaccinated, the Serbian defeated his American opponent 6:7, 1:6, 2:6 and will meet Tsitsipas first in a match where the winner will deprive Alcaras of the top of the ATP rankings. >
The men’s semifinals at the Australian Open tennis championship started today (Friday) and provided the grand final match: Novak Djokovic defeated the American Tommy Paul and will meet Stefanos Tsitsipas in the grand final, who defeated Karen Khachanov in the first semifinal the russian The winner of Sunday’s match will occupy the top of the world rankings.
The last and only time Stefanos Tsitsipas reached a Grand Slam final, he lost to Novak Djokovic in 2021. The Greek day continuedhis great tournament in Australia and recorded a second career qualification to the Grand Slam final, where he may very likely meet the formidable Serbian again. After crushing Yezi Lachaka in the quarterfinals, Tsitsipas dominated without question against Khachanov as well despite being dragged to a tiebreaker in the first set. In the second set, one break was enough for the Greek, but Khachanov fought back with a tiebreaker in the third set. But Tsitsipas broke Khachanov’s first serve and went up 0:2 quickly in the fourth set and kept his serves on the way to a victory achieved in almost three and a half hours. By the way, Tsitsipas will rise to the top of the world rankings for the first time in his career if he wins the final and wins the Grand SlamFirst in his career.
A year after the fiasco in Australia, from where Djokovic was expelled due to the fact that he did not agree to be vaccinated, the wonderful Serbian made his amends and qualified quite easily for the grand final, where he will try to beat Tsitsipas to win the tournament for the tenth time and return to his natural place: to the top of the world ranking. Djokovic cruised in the first set and already led 1:5 with two breaks. But Paul came back out of nowhere with two counter breaks and forced a 5:5 tie. But Nola was not moved and broke again to 5:7. The rest of the game was much more one-sided. Nola broke immediately at the beginning of the second set and then once again to win 1:6 and the third set also opened with a break by Djokovic against his broken opponent,who gave up after a little less than two and a half hours and disappointingly ended what was a great tournament for him. As mentioned, Djokovic will return to number one in the world if he beats Tsitsipas, who for his part will also occupy first place if he manages to surprise.
On Saturday, the final of the Australian Women’s Championship will be held between Yelena Rybakina (22, Kazakhstan) and Aryna Savalanka (5, Belarus).