Stefanos Tsitsipas bagged his 10th ATP Tour title of his career with a resounding victory over Alex de Minaur in the Los Cabos Open final.
Tsitsipas arrived in Western Mexico without an ATP title this year after losing in each of the two finals he contested in the first half of the season. But on the evidence of his majestic week in Los Cabos, he'll be relieved the monkey is finally off his back.
Tsitsipas recorded a 6-3, 6-4 win over de Minaur who was unbeaten in his last nine matches in Mexico following his title success in Acapulco earlier this year. Tsitsipas dropped serve just three times during the week and survived his biggest test in the quarterfinal win over Nicolas Jarry.
Tsitsipas started the final from where he left off in Friday's straight sets thrashing of fourth seed Borna Coric. He created the first break points on de Minaur's serve in the fourth game of the match, going 40-15 up and a wonderful use of the backhand slice forced the Australian to miscook his forehand.
Tsitsipas had won 10 consecutive points on serve to start the final. But even with a cushion, he dropped his serve straightaway, after getting a time violation at 30-30 and de Minaur attacked his backhand to break back and get the match on serve at 3-2.
The two players held in their next two games, and then Tsitsipas upped the ante with some lovely injection of pace to create another break point in the eighth game. de Minaur felt the weight of pressure and produced a costly double fault to lose his serve.
Tsitsipas held to 30 in the next game as a hapless de Minaur backhand lob cleared the court. A clenched fist of the racket by the Greek showed just how much he wanted to end his long title drought. de Minaur was now in a position he had not been all week. The Greek finished the set with 85% first-serve points won.
And Tsitsipas began the second set with authoritative dominance on return, transmitting pressure and forcing de Minaur to cough up another double fault on break point. The Aussie was clearly in a mire during the match as he just couldn't work out the tactics to outsmart the Greek.
In their last nine head-to-head matches, Tsitsipas won all of them and dropped just three sets. And here, de Minaur struggled to handle Tsitsipas' variation behind the return. Although he did superb work digging himself out of a 0-40 hole on serve in the third game and even managing to lead the set at 4-3, it was only short-lived.
Tsitsipas recovered from his momentary lapse of concentration and won the final two games of the match, getting a late break and coolly served for the championship. It was Tsitsipas' 10th ATP title and his 10th win over de Minaur without reply.
Tsitsipas will be on the next flight to Montreal where he will take part of the Canadian Open next week as he continues his preparations for the year's final major. The Greek star will play his first match there against the winner of the match between Gael Monfils and his Wimbledon conqueror Christopher Eubanks.
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