Author: Barkha Roy
Jan-Lennard Struff beat Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-3 on Thursday to reach the semi-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 Madrid Open. By defeating the Greek tennis star, the German became the third lucky loser in the history of the Masters 1000 event to reach the semi-finals, following the heroics of Thomas Johansson in 2004 in Toronto and Lucas Pouille in 2016 in Rome.
The battle between the two players was even, with each of the stars doing well in their service games, until the German double-faulted on the first break of the match in the second set, with the score at 5-5. However, he came back strongly, winning his first break point of the match in the third set with the score at 2-1.
The German will now face 29-year-old Russian Aslan Karatsev, who also qualified for the competition. Karatsev, who beat Chinese sensation Zhang Zhizhen 7-6(3), 6-4, became the second qualifier to reach the semi-finals in the history of the competition, as well as his first appearance in the quarter-finals of an ATP Masters 1000 event.
The match between the two opponents was evenly matched and, in fact, it was the Chinese player who was dominating initially. But the Russian kept his cool and saved three break points on the way to winning the first set and eventually the match in an hour and 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, in the women’s singles, Russian star Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, beat Greek Maria Sakkari, the ninth seed, 6-4, 6-1 in straight sets to reach the final of the Madrid Open for the second time in three years.
Sabalenka started the match on a high, winning the first three games, but the Greek recovered her composure and levelled the match by winning the next three. However, the Russian was so dominant from that point on, when the score was 3-3 in the opening set, that she won nine of the 11 games, including the last five games.