Draper Defeats Tsitsipas For First Top 10 Win
Draper Defeats Tsitsipas For First Top 10 Win : Wednesday was filled with upsets in Montreal. The day ended with the biggest shock of them all as per the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.
The 10th of August saw the first, second, and fifth seeds being defeated. Briton and World No. 82 Jack Draper closed the night session with a 7-5, 7-6(4) against the commendable Stefanos Tsitsipas. By defeating the third seed and World No. 5, Draper finally achieved his first Top 10 win.
Jack Draper defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas to obtain his first victory over a top 10 player. Draper is the third Briton to qualify for the third round of the National Bank Open.
Draper fought back from down a break in the second. He wrapped up the match 7-5 6-4 (4) just before 1 am in Montreal.
Tsitsipas was, unfortunately, let down by his forehand. He made 40 unforced errors throughout the game. Draper defeated the 17th seed Gael Monfils on Thursday to grab a place in the quarter-finals.
Draper emerged victorious by shunting the Greek around the court with his power game from the baseline. He proved to be the steadier player over the course of the two-hour contest.
“This is why I put in all the hard work, for nights like this on stages like this,” the 20-year-old qualifier said in an on-court interview.”
“Last week [after] Washington, I and my coach probably were thinking we weren’t even going to come here. We were going to maybe train for a week, to get a bit of confidence. But it paid off coming.”
The ranking gap of 77 places between Draper and Tsitsipas is the largest of any of the day’s upsets by some margin.
“I did not really have much of a game plan,” Draper said. “I just thought I needed to play good tennis to beat Stefanos. He is at the top of the game for a reason. He is someone I have looked up to for the last few years. It is just good to be out here and try to express myself on this stage.”
The victory helped Draper climb up to World No 62 on the ATP Live Rankings tracker.
It was an unfortunate day for the top seeds. Tennis players like Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz, and Andrey Rublev were eliminated from the tournament.
British number two Dan Evans, on the other hand, shocked eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev. Evans went on to qualify for the tournament’s last 16 for the first time.
The 6-4 6-4 victory against the Russian, Andrey Rublev, was Evans’ fifth over a top-10 opponent. He is set to face the 10th-seeded American Taylor Fritz.
Cameron Norrie will be facing the hometown hero Felix Auger-Aliassime for the second time in a week. The British number one went on to defeat Botic van de Zandschulp in straight sets.
Norrie defeated the Canadian on Saturday in the Abierto de Tenis Mifel semi-final event for the first time in five meetings. He overthrew the Dutchman with a 6-1 6-2 effort.