Stefanos Tsitsipas faced a pretty big obstacle in rising star Ben Shelton at the 2023 Cincinnati Masters, but he navigated the match really well to win in two sets.
The Greek player played in the final at the ATP 1000 event in Cincinnati last year, and this match looked very much how he played last year. It was heavily dominated by his serve, which was a significant weapon pushing him to the final last year, but he ran into a better server that week in Borna Coric.
Shelton was always going to be a tough matchup for the Greek because he has a pretty powerful serve of his own. As predicted in our preview, it was a very close match but certainly a better one for Tsitsipas compared to last week's early exit against Gael Monfils.
The first set finished in a tiebreak as neither player gave an inch in the first twelve games of the match. The serves dominated, and while we didn't see too many aces, we saw plenty of service winners. They lost only 4 points combined behind their first serves in the first set, and neither allowed a break point. Tsitsipas handled the tiebreak better, 7-3.
The second set was again very close. It was pretty much an identical set to the first one, as we saw the serves dominate once more. In ways, they were even more impressive in the second set because they lost even fewer points until the tiebreak.
Shelton struggled greatly towards the end of the second set, completely falling apart in the tiebreak, which allowed Tsitsipas to run away with it. The final score was 7-6(3) 7-6(2) with some impressive stats.
Tsitsipas didn't allow a single break point; he lost only three points behind his first serve and had 23 winners overall. Let's see if he can do the same against either Hubert Hurkacz or Borna Coric in the next round.
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