{"id":11793,"date":"2019-01-22T08:56:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T13:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=11793"},"modified":"2019-01-22T08:56:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T13:56:20","slug":"stefanos-tsitsipas-changing-guard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2019\/01\/22\/stefanos-tsitsipas-changing-guard\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefanos Tsitsipas: Changing of the Guard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stefanos Tsitsipas has become the youngest player since Novak Djokovic at the 2007 US Open<\/a> to reach a Grand Slam semifinal.<\/p>\n

He beat Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-6) in the Australian Open<\/a> quarterfinals to follow up his impressive win over Roger Federer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Baton being passed?<\/h2>\n

The shock win over Federer has been seen as a passing of the baton from a multiple Slam champion to a potential one.<\/p>\n

It echoes one of a 19-year-old Federer’s early wins when he beat his idol Pete Sampras in 2001<\/a>. Sampras would go on to win only more Slam and played his last tournament in 2002.<\/p>\n

Therefore, similarities are made with Federer in the twilight of his career at 37, and Tsitispas just starting out on his.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the best two players are Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, but they are 31 and 32 respectively, with recent injury problems. With Andy Murray plagued by a hip injury and likely<\/a> retiring<\/a>, this is an opportunity for the new generation of players.<\/p>\n

There was pressure on Tsitsipas to back up his Federer triumph but is surely a leading contender to win a Slam in the next few years.<\/p>\n

Notable wins already<\/h2>\n

Tsitsipas had already recorded eye-catching results in 2018, including at the Canadian Open<\/a>. He beat World No. 8 Dominic Thiem, No. 10 Novak Djokovic, No. 3 Alexander Zverev, and No. 6 Kevin Anderson. This made him the second player to beat four top 10 players at a single event since 2004.<\/p>\n

In addition, he ended the year by triumphing in the NextGen ATP Finals<\/a>, a tournament for the best under 21 players. He beat Alex de Minaur in the final, claiming the end of season ATP Most Improved Player award.<\/p>\n

Raising the profile of Greek tennis<\/h2>\n

Unsurprisingly the Greek has plenty of support at Melbourne Park. The Australian city has the largest Greek-speaking population outside Europe. This outstanding breakthrough run saw him become the first Greek player to progress to a Slam quarter-final.<\/p>\n

As well as that, he was the first Greek to win an ATP Tour title when he triumphed at the Stockholm Open.<\/p>\n

Playing Style<\/h2>\n

The Greek star claimed Federer was his idol growing up, basing his game around the Swiss legend. He has the same one-handed backhand, is adept at the net and has a strong first serve.<\/p>\n

Against Bautista Agut, he served 22 aces, winning 90% of points on his first serve in the first set. Similarly, he lost only three points on his second serve in the fourth set.<\/p>\n

He now faces Rafael Nadal in a blockbuster of a semifinal as he aims to keep this extraordinary run going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stefanos Tsitsipas has become the youngest player since Novak Djokovic at the 2007 US Open to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. He beat Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-6) in the Australian Open quarterfinals to follow up his impressive win over Roger Federer. Baton being passed? The shock win over Federer has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2910,"featured_media":11729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,2],"tags":[3612,2475,22,114,304,4507],"class_list":["post-11793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-open","category-atp","category-featured","tag-canadian-masters","tag-federer","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-roger-federer","tag-stefanos-tsitsipas","tag-tsitsipas-australian-open"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}