Former Cincinnati Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas was able to stage a comeback against Jan Lennard Struff in the first round of the ATP Masters 1000 event.
The Greek player has struggled with his tennis lately. Outside of a good performance at the Olympics, Tsitsipas has severely underperformed compared to his ranking. A lot has happened in his team, and nothing shows that better than him removing his father as a coach.
It seemed like it was never going to happen, and now that it did, it's clear that there was a lot of internal frustration. He brought a different coach with him to Cincinnati, but early on, the result wasn't that different from what happened in Montreal last week.
Tsitsipas has played well in Cincinnati in the past and made the final two years ago, but he didn't start well against the German player. In fairness, he faced a strong player who has been a consistently solid performer for a while now, so that didn't help.
The first set was close, as both players started comfortably on their serve. It was a very fast-paced match, and the points were short, which is fairly typical of the matches played in Cincinnati.
Both dominated on their first serve, even though Struff looked more impressive overall. The Greek tried to force it a bit too much. He had four double faults, which wasn't good, and generally didn't hit the serve at a high percentage.
His confidence has been down lately due to bad performances, which is a huge problem. He could go only as far as his serve would take him, and it didn't take him that far early in this match.
The first break for Struff came at 4-4, which was the perfect time, and it came because Tsitsipas just had a really bad service game. The German was too solid overall and didn't have poor games, so he won the opening set 6-4.
The German had one really bad game early in the second set, allowing Tsitsipas multiple break points. The Greek failed to convert those, proving very costly, as he got broken in the next game.
The problem was once again the serve. He was hitting it barely half the time, which was not good enough. Not hitting the first serve allowed Struff to put pressure on him, and Tsitsipas doesn't excel defensively.
The Greek worked his way to another break point at 3-2 and, this time around, converted it to make it 3-3 and then 4-3. Tsitsipas could nearly make it 5-3, but Struff barely held on to prevent the turnaround.
It still happened just two games later when Tsitsipas won the second 6-4. Struff was the one who forced the issue this time around, as he totaled eight double faults in the second set, which was way too many.
Struff continued to struggle at the start of the third set as he allowed break points immediately. Tsitsipas wasted four but then converted the fifth one to take a 3-0 lead. That proved enough as Tsitsipas calmly cruised to the finish line, improving on his serve, to win the match 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
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