Top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and second seed Alex de Minaur maintained their momentum in Milan on Wednesday after defeating Frances Tiafoe and Andrey Rublev respectively.
Tsitsipas, who is currently the World No. 15, needed just a little over an hour and 14 minutes to defeat his American adversary. With that second win in the group, the 20-year-old Greek now leads the table at 2-0.
Tsitsipas edged past Tiafoe with 4-3(7), 4-3(7), 4-2. He had six aces over the course of the match and maintained a first service win-rate of 80%. Additionally, the present Rogers Cup runner-up saved two break-points to avoid giving the American a lead over him.
The Greek held on to his nerve in the two tiebreaks and broke Tiafoe’s serve on five distinct occasions to take the sets.
In Group B, it was Alex de Minaur who dominated the proceedings with a 3-1 win over the Russian prodigy. The match lasted for an hour and 27 minutes and saw Minaur seal the victory with 4-1, 3-4(7), 4-1, 4-2.
The young Australian was highly efficient over the course of the game. He doled out 10 aces and kept his first serve win rate at an impressive 81% – Rublev’s answer to this was a mere 68% with just 3 aces.
In addition to this, De Minaur saved four out of five break points while converting on four out of a possible 12 chances. Needless to mention, Rublev was outclassed in every single aspect and there wasn’t a lot that the Russian could do to stop the Shenzhen Open semifinalist.
In Group B, we also saw the fourth seed Taylor Fritz move past his Italian adversary Liam Caruana with 1-4, 4-1, 4-3(9), 4-2. Meanwhile, in Group A, Hubert Hurkacz finally got a win in Milan after defeating Jaume Munar 3-2 in a little over two hours.
With the group stage now approaching its inevitable end, the deciding games will be played on Thursday, November 8. Tiafoe will go up against Munar while Tsitsipas will face Hubert in a bid to seal his place in the semifinal.
In the other group, De Minaur will look forward to maintaining his winning streak with a win over Taylor Fritz, while Andrey Rublev and Liam Caruana will battle it out in the decider.
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