ATP: Stefanos Tsitsipas wins in Mallorca, Taylor Fritz in Eastbourne
Stefanos Tsitsipas (ATP No. 6) has won the Mallorca Championships and thus his first career title on grass. Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 13) won the parallel tournament in Eastbourne.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Jun 25, 2022, 06:23 pm
Tsitsipas beat the Spaniard Robert Bautista Agut 6: 4, 3: 6 and 7: 6 (2) in the final and thus snatched his ninth tournament win overall - his second this year. Tsitsipas also leads the match wins ranking in 2022, with 40 successes now.
The man from Greece was always considered to be someone who should play the game on grass - as he himself thought. Just recently in Stuttgart, he named turf one of his favorite surfaces, but that's never on the radar because he'd always failed at the start of the last two Wimbledon tournaments. So now the first title - and a good prelude to the championships, which start on Monday.
Tsitsipas had previously lost in the second match in Stuttgart and Halle, but also against two experts on grass, Andy Murray and Nick Kyrgios.
Tsitsipas and "RBA" played together for just under two and a half hours, "it almost seems as if I'm playing longer matches on grass than on sand," joked Tsitsipas afterwards.
Mallorca tournament boss Toni Nadal also praised Tsitsipas and named him one of the favorites for Wimbledon. "I hope you don't hit Rafael and Felix," he joked.
Taylor Fritz wins at Eastbourne
Shortly after Tsitsipas, Taylor Fritz was also crowned tournament winner - at the event in Eastbourne. In the final he beat Maxime Cressy 6: 2, 6: 7 (4) and 7: 6 (4) and won the third career title on the ATP tour. Fritz had already won in Indian Wells this year and was also successful on grass in Eastbourne in 2019.
Against serve-and-volley expert Cressy, a lot went on the serve, Fritz didn't allow a single breakball over the entire duration and in the end also showed great patience on the way to the match point.
Cressy, one of the biggest climbers in recent months, missed his first tournament success at ATP level. In January he was in the final of the ATP tournament in Melbourne, where he lost to Rafael Nadal.
However, thanks to a strong week at Eastbourne, Cressy will appear in the world top 50 for the first time starting Monday.