Tsitsipas Wins 400th Match, Reaches Shanghai Third Round
By Taki Panos
Nine years ago in Shanghai, a teenager from Athens won his first match on the ATP Tour, beating Karen Khachanov in the first round. On Saturday, back in the same city, Stefanos Tsitsipas won his 400th. He handled 18th seed Luciano Darderi of Italy 6-3, 6-4 at the Rolex Shanghai Masters to reach the third round, and the ATP Tour was quick to point out the symmetry. Sometimes the schedule writes a better story than any of us could.
Four hundred is a club more than a number. According to the ATP, Tsitsipas, now 28, is only the ninth active man to get there and just the fifth born since 1990, joining Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev. His career record now reads 400-204, with 13 tour-level titles, a career-high ranking of No. 3 and the 2019 ATP Finals trophy, the one people tend to forget when they start listing what he hasn't won. On the active wins list he sits level with Rublev at 400, with Kei Nishikori next up the ladder at 452.
The match itself was tidy, a word that hasn't always applied to Tsitsipas over the last couple of seasons. As in.gr and Efsyn described it, he broke Darderi in the second game and rode that to a 6-3 first set in 39 minutes, then found another break in the seventh game of the second set and closed it out. No third set, no long arguments with the chair, no drama. Just a former top-three player doing former top-three things against a seeded opponent.
It is worth remembering where this week started. Tsitsipas arrived in Shanghai ranked outside the top 40 and, as the Associated Press put it after his opener, in the middle of a slow climb back up the rankings. A week earlier he had to win two qualifying matches just to reach the main draw of the Japan Open, where he lost in the second round. For a former world No. 3, playing qualies is the tennis version of the restaurant owner washing dishes on a Friday night. Nobody wants to do it, but the ones who do it without complaining usually keep the place open.
His first match here, on Thursday, was a 6-3, 7-5 win over Belgian qualifier Kimmer Coppejans, per the ATP results page. Then came Darderi. Two matches, two straight-set wins, and according to Efsyn and Tennis Temple he is now up to No. 38 in the live rankings. Tennis Temple also counts 10 wins in his last 12 matches. Whatever the exact number, it reads like a player rebuilding the habit of winning, and habits are what carry you through the end of a long season.
Efsyn also spelled out the bigger goal: finishing the year high enough to be among the top 32 seeds at the Australian Open in January. That is not a glamorous target for a man who has played in Grand Slam finals, but it is the right one. A seed keeps the heavyweights away for the first few rounds, and for a player on the way back, the first week of a major is where confidence gets built, one quiet win at a time.
Next up is Taylor Fritz, the 11th seed, who beat Matteo Arnaldi 7-5, 6-4 in a match that had to be finished under the roof because of rain. Fritz has his own reasons to be hungry. The ATP has him 12th in the live race to Turin, chasing a spot at the season-ending ATP Finals. So this is not an opponent coasting through the Asian swing. It is two players who both need the match, which is usually when the tennis gets interesting.
For Greek fans in America, a Greek against an American in a big draw is the kind of matchup that can split a couch in half, from Astoria to Tarpon Springs. If you want the longer story of the man from Athens, our profile of Stefanos Tsitsipas is a good place to start, and our page on Pete Sampras is a nice reminder that Greek-American tennis greatness has a long pedigree. And if you are hunting for Greek coverage of the match, our guide on how to watch Greek TV online can help.
My take, for whatever it is worth from a guy who has been arguing about Tsitsipas at diner counters for years: 400 wins does not erase the rough patches, and it does not need to. Milestones like this are mostly a reminder of how long someone has been good. Nine years after Khachanov, he is still showing up in Shanghai and still winning on a Saturday. In a sport that chews through young talent, that kind of staying power deserves a toast, an ouzo if it is evening where you are, a coffee if you are catching the early-morning feed back in the States.
For more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. Win number 401 is up next, and I would love to see it come against a seeded American with something to play for. That would make the next milestone feel a little closer than it looks.
Cover photo: Stefanos Tsitsipas by Skyscraper2010, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
