In the Western & Southern Open final, Borna Coric defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (7-0), 6-2 to claim his first-ever ATP Masters 1000 victory.
The 152nd-ranked Coric had a week of tennis he will never forget, defeating five straight top-20 opponents in Rafael Nadal, Roberto Bautista-Agut, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Cameron Norrie, and lastly Stefanos Tsitsipas, according to DPA.
When he broke Coric’s serve at the first opportunity, Tsitsipas raced to a 4-1 lead and appeared to have a straightforward first set. However, Coric stormed back to draw the match and force a tie-break after saving three additional break points.
From that point on, Coric had the advantage as he easily won the tie-break without losing a point, shocking the world’s seventh-ranked player.
Tsitsipas threatened to regain control when he quickly took a love-to-40 lead during Coric’s opening service game of the second set. However, the 25-year-old in the second ATP Masters 1000 final of his career—and the first since Shanghai in 2018—was on a mission and saved three additional break points to maintain his lead.
The best tournament of Coric’s career came to a close when he broke the Greek’s serve twice to seal the victory after saving six of the seven break points he faced in the match.
The statistics show that this was not an aberration; Coric outperformed Tsitsipas in both serve and return, winning 69 percent of his points to Tsitsipas’ 57 percent, and creating 12 break point opportunities to Tsitsipas’ seven.
With the victory and the 1000 ranking points, Coric will move up 123 spots to position 29 in the upcoming rankings.
(Inputs from IANS)