Alex de Minaur is out of the Italian Open after a straight-sets defeat to Greek world number eight Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Despite beating legend Rafael Nadal earlier this clay court season, Tsitsipas dispatched de Minaur 6-1 6-2 in 59 minutes to reach the Italian Open quarterfinals.
The Aussie was 3-0 down after nine minutes and never recovered with the mercurial Greek showing how good he can be on his day on clay.
Tsitsipas hit 15 winners to de Minaur’s four, and made fewer unforced errors despite playing an aggressive game.
The key was the quality of Tsitsipas’s returns, de Minaur only delivered six unreturned serves out of 40, won less than half his points on second service, and lost five of eight break points on serve.
Tsitsipas will now play Chile’s Nicolas Jarry, who defeated Alexandre Muller 7-5 6-3.
The Greek is firming as a strong contender for this year’s French Open.
Tsitsipas went down to Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller in the 2021 French Open final, while also winning three 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 beaten 6-1 6-4 by Tommy Paul in Tuesday’s shock result, Tsitsipas looks to be the man to beat in this event with former winner Alexander Zverev, who is in the other half of the draw, the main threat.
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AAP/ABC
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