Monte-Carlo Masters: Tsitsipas wobbles but beats Zverev, into quarter-finals

Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 12 seed, reached the quarter-finals of the Monte-Carlo Masters by beating German Alexander Zverev, the No 5 seed, 7-5, 7-6 (3) at Monte-Carlo Country Club on Thursday.

Tsitsipas had match points when 7-5, 5-0 up, and proceeded to lose five games on the bounce before finally getting the job done in the tiebreak.

The two-time champion now has his first win over a player ranked in the Top 5 since the 2022 ATP Finals.

And in doing so, he snapped Zverev’s six-match winning streak on clay, extending back to his title run in Hamburg last July.

Tsitsipas’s form on clay is well established now; since the start of 2021, he has now reached the quarter-finals at nine of the ten clay-court Masters 1000 events.

And he is the first player this decade to achieve 50 match wins on clay at Masters 1000 and Grand Slam events combined.

Tsitsipas, ranked No 12, will play No 15 seed Karen Khachanov next.

The Greek benefited from the abandonment of Serb Laslo Djere (6-3, 3-2) and won against Argentinian Tomas Martin Etcheverry (6-1, 6-0) earlier in the tournament.

In the previous round of the Monte-Carlo tournament, Zverev, ranked No 5, won against Austrian Sebastian Ofner (6-3, 6-4).

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Monte-Carlo Masters 1000, other last 16 results (Monte-Carlo Country Club, clay, EUR 5.950.575, most recent results first):

• Hubert Hurkacz vs. Casper Ruud
• Lorenzo Sonego vs. Ugo Humbert
• Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Jannik Sinner
• Holger Rune vs. Grigor Dimitrov
• Novak Djokovic vs. Lorenzo Musetti: thursday
• Karen Khachanov beat Daniil Medvedev (4): 6-3, 7-5
• Alex De Minaur (11) beat Alexei Popyrin: 6-3, 6-4