Stefanos Tsitsipas was the absolute ruler for two sets, but in the third he played with fire and had to fight hard to make it 3-0 and make it into the second round of the Australian Open.

In the next round, Steph will meet the winner of the match between Hanfmann (Germany, No. 128) and Hijikata (Australia, No. 169) on Wednesday (18 January).

The match: Stefanos Tsitsipas came into play perfectly and held his serve. After the first game he accepted, he began filling Alice’s service games.

The break came in the fourth game, Steph led 3:1 and then held 4:1. Alis needed two more games but didn’t threaten the Greek tennis player who finished the first set 6-3.

It looked similar in the second set, only the break was delayed by one game. In fact, Stefanos Tsitsipas broke in the fifth game and took a 3-2 lead.

Tsitsipas redeemed it by comfortably holding at 4-2 immediately afterwards. Alice held twice and we reached the tenth game where Steph finished the set 6-4.

The third set started perfectly for Stefanos Tsitsipas, who broke in the first game. In the second, however, he proved Alice right by making three double faults. Eventually, he managed to get out of the tight situation to capitalize on his break which he took to give them a 2-0 lead.

Where everything seemed to have been easy for the Greek tennis player, he suddenly couldn’t get past the first serve. This gave Alice a chance to use the next four games to take a 4-2 lead.

Tsitsipas took the break back and leveled the set to follow a battle between the two tennis players. Alis had four chances for a match point in game 12, but Tsitsipas wiped them all out and sent the set into the tiebreak.

There, Alis took a 3-0 lead, but the Greek tennis player turned again to end the set and the match.