Tsitsipas impressive clay-court season continues in Rome

Stefanos Tsitsipas continued his impressive clay-court season on Monday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, where he dispatched British lefty Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-6(1) to reach the fourth round in Rome.

“My shots were landing deep in the court and creating a lot of angles. It is difficult for my opponent to control those shots and I think I did that in the first set,” Tsitsipas said. “Precise, one might call it. The first set I did a great job in making him feel uncomfortable, at least that is what I felt from the other side of the court.”

The Greek dictated in the first set, taking large cuts off the forehand wing to overpower Norrie. Tsitsipas was made to battle in the second set and recovered from squandering a break advantage to advance after one hour and 33 minutes.

“The second set was not going to be easy,” Tsitsipas said. “He is a top player and knows how to adapt to situations and fix things, so I knew that the second set might present a different type of challenge. It did and I had to find solutions. He was holding serve a little more comfortably and my shots were perhaps not doing as much damage.

“My patience and determination in the tie-break, trying to hang in there and make as many balls as I could and make as many balls as deep as possible so I didn’t have to defend much was something that gave me the 7/1 in the tie-break. That was a relief. It was getting really close and the match was played in a few small details.”

With his 23rd win of the year, Tsitsipas improved to 2-1 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series against Norrie. Tsitsipas also beat the 28-year-old in the Lyon final in 2021.

The No. 8 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, who hit 27 winners and committed nine unforced errors, according to Infosys ATP Stats, is 12-2 on clay in 2024, having won his third ATP Masters 1000 crown in Monte-Carlo. The 25-year-old will play Alex de Minaur in the fourth round.

The former Nitto ATP Finals champion Tsitsipas has performed strongly in Rome throughout his career, reaching the final in 2022 and the last four in 2019 and 2023.

Norrie was aiming to reach the fourth round at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the fourth time.