Tsitsipas Fires 15 Aces to Beat Duckworth and Reach Almaty Semifinals

By Taki Panos

Fifteen aces, zero double faults and not a single break point to defend. That was the short version of Friday in Kazakhstan. Stefanos Tsitsipas beat Australia's James Duckworth 6-3, 6-4 in 73 minutes on Friday, October 23, 2026, to reach the semifinals of the Almaty Open, as the ATP Tour and the tournament itself reported. The seventh seed has now won three matches in a row at the ATP 250 event, and the last two have barely made him sweat.

For anyone catching up, the week did not start this smoothly. On Tuesday Tsitsipas needed three sets and saved three set points in a long tiebreak to get past Aleksandar Kovacevic. On Wednesday he rolled past Mikhail Kukushkin 6-1, 6-2 in the Kazakh veteran's farewell match. Duckworth, 34 and ranked No. 73 per Tennis.com, arrived with the upset of the tournament on his record after knocking out second seed Luciano Darderi 7-5, 7-6(7), according to the ATP results.

The first set was a serving show. According to Gazzetta's point-by-point account, Tsitsipas opened with an ace, broke on his first chance, and then fired three more aces in a love game for 3-0 after just eight minutes. More love games followed for 4-1 and 5-2. He had two set points in the eighth game without converting, and Duckworth even got to 0-30 on the Greek's serve in the ninth. Four straight points later, the set was his, 6-3 in 28 minutes, Gazzetta reported.

The second set asked more questions, at least on the return side. Duckworth saved two break points in his opening service game, and the third game turned into a 20-point fight with seven deuces, which the Australian eventually won for 2-1, per Gazzetta. Tsitsipas wasted two more break chances there. For a while it looked like a set that could drift toward a tiebreak, with Duckworth holding a 3-2 lead and serving well enough to stay in front.

It did not drift. Tsitsipas answered the 3-2 deficit with three aces in another love game, and in the seventh game he finally got the break on his fifth opportunity of the set, helped by a Duckworth error, Gazzetta reported. From there the Greek closed it out the way he had started, with two more love service games, the second of them for 6-4 and a place in the last four. The Almaty Open's own summary called it a clinical win, with one decisive break in each set.

The numbers back that up. Tsitsipas put 80 percent of his first serves in play (37 of 46) and won 34 of those 37 points, or 92 percent, according to the match statistics published by Tennis.com. He won 10 of 10 service games, converted two of eight break points and hit 33 winners in total, per Gazzetta. Duckworth, for his part, won just three of 37 points against the Tsitsipas first serve. That is the kind of stat line that makes a quarterfinal feel short.

The ATP Tour put the result in a wider frame. This is Tsitsipas's second semifinal of the 2026 season and his first on hard courts since February 2025. The first one this year turned into a title, as Gazzetta noted, when he won in Gstaad in July. The win also keeps him on the path back toward the Top 30, Gazzetta added. He is currently No. 39 in the world, so every match won this week moves the needle.

Afterward, Tsitsipas talked more about clarity than about aces. "For me, it is important to stick to the fundamentals that are consistency, is finding the depth, the angles, all these important things that makes tennis such a unique sport," he said in comments published by the Almaty Open. "It feels good to be back playing that type of tennis. It feels good to have things clear in my mind and not have any doubts." He added that he is "completely focused on long-term vision," even while enjoying the week.

He also spoke openly about life away from the court. "I have a lot of peace in my life, and peace also brings balance into my daily life," Tsitsipas said, per the tournament's site, explaining that this balance lets him stay "completely focused and wired in" on his job. "When you have a chaotic life and not aligned with how you personally wanted, you always keep asking questions to yourself," he added.

Next up is Nikoloz Basilashvili on Saturday, October 24, at 1 PM Greek time, Gazzetta reported. The Georgian is a qualifier ranked No. 128, but do not let that fool you. He crushed Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-1 in his quarterfinal, with 11 aces and four breaks of serve, per the Almaty Open and the ATP Tour. He is 34, owns five ATP titles including the Beijing ATP 500, where he beat Juan Martin del Potro in the final, and his one win over Tsitsipas came when the Greek was world No. 3, according to Gazzetta.

Tsitsipas leads their head-to-head 3-1, both Gazzetta and SDNA reported, but the two have not met since 2022. Their first meeting was a four-set battle at the 2019 Australian Open, and the last one, at the ATP Cup, ended early when Basilashvili retired injured with Tsitsipas up 4-1 in the first set, per Gazzetta. On the other side of the draw, defending champion Daniil Medvedev beat Terence Atmane 6-4, 6-4 and waits for the winner of Alexander Bublik and Karen Khachanov, the ATP Tour reported. The final is on Sunday, October 25.

My take: this was the most complete match Tsitsipas has played in a while, and the serve is the reason. When he gets 80 percent of first serves in and loses three points on them all day, he does not need to be perfect from the baseline. The calm in his words matched the calm on the court. Basilashvili is the most dangerous kind of opponent for a semifinal, a former Top 20 player in form with nothing to lose. If the serve holds up like this again, though, Tsitsipas should be the favorite to reach his second final of the year.

Saturday will tell us whether this is a good week or a real statement. Either way, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section for the result and every Greek story from Almaty and beyond. Fifteen aces. Zero doubts.

Sources: ATP Tour, Almaty Open, Tennis.com, Gazzetta, SDNA.

Image: Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Swiss Indoors Basel 2024 by Skyscraper2010, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).