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Stefanos Tsitsipas defeats Serbia’s Laslo Dere in straight sets 7-5, 7-5 to register a comprehensive win
Stefanos Tsitsipas continues his impressive run in Monte Carlo. Tsitsipas has followed up his straight sets victory against Fabio Fognini in the previous round with another one against Laslo Dere today. The Greek is seeded no.3 in the tournament and is definitely living up to the expectations. Tsitsipas and Dere had faced each other only once before in the ATP circuit and the Greek came out on top on that occasion in the Mexican Open earlier this year. Tsitsipas was the favourite going into the encounter both in terms of rankings and head to head records and the 23-year old didn’t suffer any hiccups.
Both the players were strong in holding their serves throughout the match. In the first set, Dere put on a good show but his serve got broken towards the very end. The second set was even more closer. Despite all the pressure and the heavy returns from Tsitsipas, Laslo Dere managed to hold on to all his serves and take the set to a tie-breaker. However, the Serbian didn’t seem to have the composure in the tie-breaker and got broken very early. Tsitsipas made the most of the opportunity and cruised through to complete a thoroughly impressive victory.
Tsitsipas’ father was once again seen making comments in between points during his son’s match against Dere. There was been a lot of controversy off late regarding his actions with several players complaining to the chair umpire. Daniil Medvedev had reported Tsitsipas’ father’s actions during their match at the Australian Open earlier this year and Fabio Fognini raised the issue once during their previous match but it doesn’t seem to stop.
During the match, there were constant noises from Tsitsipas’ box and Fognini was clearly not happy with that. He reported the issue to the chair umpire but no action was taken by the officials.
After the match, Fognini took to social media to hit out at Stefanos Tsitsipas’ father. Fognini wrote on his Instagram story, “Coaching or Not Coaching…That’s a big problem. Right @atptour?” Fognini clearly referred to Tsitsipas’ father’s actions during the match and called upon the governing body of men’s tennis to take appropriate actions.
It will be interesting to see if match officials start taking actions against Tsitsipas’ father if more and more complaints are raised going forward.
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