Stefanos Tsitsipas continued his impressive start to 2021 on Tuesday with a 7-6(4), 7-5 victory against Egor Gerasimov in the first round of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament.
The second seed remained calm throughout the one-hour, 54-minute match, battling through the Belarusian’s hot patches to make the second round in Rotterdam for the second consecutive year.
“I had to play more consistently and also what I increased in the [key] moments was the speed of my ball, which felt kind of floppy before. He had a solid game, he was serving well at times. He wasn’t missing a lot, so it was difficult,” Tsitsipas said. “I think once I put in my head that I needed to fight and I [couldn’t] take [any] single moment for granted, things changed and I felt the confidence.”
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Tsitsipas will next play Hubert Hurkacz, who defeated Frenchman Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 7-6(6) earlier in the day. The second seed leads the Polish No. 1 5-1 in their ATP Head2Head series, in which their past four meetings have gone to a deciding set.
Source: ATP Tennis TV
