Tsitsipas Rolls Past Kukushkin in 62 Minutes to Reach Almaty Quarterfinals

By Taki Panos

Some goodbyes are long and emotional. This one was over in about an hour. Stefanos Tsitsipas beat home wild card Mikhail Kukushkin 6-1, 6-2 in 62 minutes on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, to reach the quarterfinals of the Almaty Open in Kazakhstan, as Gazzetta and Sport24 both reported. It was the second-round match of the indoor ATP 250 event, and for the 38-year-old Kazakh it was also the last match of his professional career, in front of his own crowd.

If you missed the start of the week, Tsitsipas came into this one off a much tougher opener. On Tuesday he saved three set points in a long first-set tiebreak and needed three sets to get past American Aleksandar Kovacevic, a match we covered in our story on his first-round win in Almaty. The seventh seed here, he arrived in Kazakhstan from a busy Asian swing that included a comeback win over Taylor Fritz in Shanghai. Wednesday asked far less of him.

The first set was close to a clinic. According to Gazzetta's point-by-point account, Tsitsipas broke on his second chance for 2-0, held for 3-0 after just ten minutes and then broke again on the way to 5-0. He served out the set 6-1 in 24 minutes, having won 27 points to Kukushkin's 11, per Gazzetta. Sport24 also timed the opener at 24 minutes and the second set at 38, and described the gap in quality between the two players as huge.

The second set followed the same script, with one small act of resistance. Tsitsipas won eight points in a row to go 2-0 up, Gazzetta reported, before Kukushkin got on the board for 2-1. Another break made it 4-1. Kukushkin did not go quietly, though: serving at 2-5 in the seventh game, he saved three match points to hold, per Gazzetta. Tsitsipas then served it out for 6-2 and a place in the last eight. Sport24 noted that Kukushkin won only three games in the entire match.

The numbers tell you how one-sided it was. Tsitsipas hit eight aces and no double faults, won 19 of his 23 first-serve points and 14 of his 17 second-serve points, and never faced a single break point, according to the match statistics published by Tennis.com. On the other side of the net, he converted four of his eight break chances and won more than half of the points on Kukushkin's first serve. When your serve is that clean, the pressure never really switches sides.

It is worth pausing on who was across the net, because this was not just another second-round opponent. Kukushkin, a former world No. 39 according to both Tennis.com and Puntodebreak, has been a fixture of Kazakh tennis for almost two decades. A tally shared by tennis journalist Jose Morgado and carried by Gazzetta lists one ATP title, two Grand Slam fourth rounds in singles, four Davis Cup quarterfinals and 17 Challenger titles. That is a proper career, and the Almaty crowd knew it.

He chose this week on purpose. Speaking before the match to Puntodebreak, Kukushkin said he had not been able to play with consistency or climb the rankings, even while working very hard, and that he made the decision to stop almost six months ago. He said he was sure it was the right call and happy to finish at a tournament where he felt so much support. He also thanked fellow Kazakh Alexander Bublik, who came to Almaty to back him from the stands.

There was a Greek thread to his farewell week even before Wednesday. In the first round on Monday, Kukushkin beat Greece's Stefanos Sakellaridis 7-6(4), 7-6(3), as Gazzetta reported and the ATP results confirm, which ended any chance of an all-Greek match in the second round. Sakellaridis, 22, had come through qualifying and reached a career-high ranking of No. 133 that same week, per Gazzetta, so his week in Almaty was still a step forward even if it ended early.

For Tsitsipas, the bigger story is the shape of his autumn. The two matches in Almaty could hardly have been more different, a two-hour grind followed by an hour-long cruise, and he got through both without much drama at the finish. He also has good memories of this tournament. In 2022, when the event was held in Astana, he reached the final, as we noted earlier this week. Kazakhstan seems to suit him.

Next up is a quarterfinal on Friday, October 23, against Australia's James Duckworth, Gazzetta reported. Duckworth earned his spot with the upset of the tournament so far, knocking out second seed Luciano Darderi in straight sets, 7-5, 7-6(7), per Gazzetta, with Sport24 also reporting the straight-sets win. Gazzetta wrote that Duckworth saved a set point in that tiebreak, and a social media post carried by Gazzetta credited him with 17 aces, so Tsitsipas can expect a serving test.

My take: you cannot read too much into a 6-1, 6-2 win over a player who is retiring, and Tsitsipas would be the first to say so. But the details matter. No break points faced, eight aces, and a quick, professional finish on a night when the whole arena was there for the other man. After the nerves against Kovacevic, this was the calm, efficient version of him that makes a deep run possible. Duckworth will serve big, so Friday is the real measuring stick.

Credit to Kukushkin, too, for a career that deserved a home farewell and got one. For Tsitsipas, it is two wins down and a semifinal place within reach, with Friday's quarterfinal set to decide whether this becomes a proper title push. Keep an eye on our Greek Sports section for the result and every Greek tennis update this autumn. One goodbye done. Now the real work starts.

Sources: Gazzetta, Sport24, Tennis.com, Puntodebreak, ATP Tour.

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