Exhibition Abu Dhabi: Stefanos Tsitsipas and Rafael Nadal in the final
Stefanos Tsitsipas confirmed his strong form from the 2019 season finale on Friday and reached the final at the Abu Dhabi invitation tournament. The Greek defeated Novak Djokovic 4: 6, 7: 6 (4), 6: 4 after a set deficit and now meets Rafael Nadal in the final, who just left Karen Khachanov four games.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Dec 20, 2019, 08:10 pm
Djokovic got the better start in a duel with Tsitsipas and quickly stormed to 5: 1. Tsitsipas worked his way up again, but Djokovic ultimately played the sentence home.
In the second round it was Tsitsipas who led 5: 1, but Djokovic came back, equalized and developed a tie break. There Tsitsipas prevailed. He took the momentum into the decision set, a break at 2-0 ultimately made the difference.
"At 1: 5, I was mad at myself. But afterwards I played a lot with Brain, it was a high-quality match," said Tsitsipas after the game.
Rafael Nadal clearly defeats Karen Khachanov
The second semi-final was a clear affair for favorite Nadal. With breaks to 3: 1 and 5: 1, after 42 minutes he got the first set against Khachanov, who defeated Hyeon Chung in two sets the day before.
Also in the second round Nadal got an early break, this time to 1.0, and managed another to 6: 3 and to win the match.
So on Saturday Tsitsipas and Nadal meet, Djokovic plays against Khachanov for third place.
In the first match of the day, Andrey Rublev took fifth place in the Mubadala Tennis World Championship. He beat Chung 7: 6, 7: 6 in two tie breaks.