Novak Djokovic will play Stefanos Tsitsipas for the Madrid Open title after the 20-year-old Greek stunned Rafael Nadal to win a thrilling semi-final 6-4 2-6 6-3 on his fourth match point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nadal had been a clear \nfavourite to face Djokovic in Sunday’s showpiece at Caja Magica but the \n17-time Grand Slam champion extended his stuttering build-up to the \nFrench Open with another surprise defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tsitsipas’ stunning \nvictory on Saturday means he reaches his fourth ATP final of the season \nwhile fully vindicating those that have him circled as a future star of \nthe men’s game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might be too early to expect the world number \nnine to challenge at Roland Garros later this month but, with a fearless\n style and formidable forehand, Tsitsipas is developing a habit for \ndelivering on the big stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of career wins, this \nperhaps trails only his ousting of Roger Federer from the Australian \nOpen in January, when he went on to reach the semi-finals for his best \nrun yet at a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, as well as Federer and Nadal, \nTsitsipas has now beaten Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem, both twice,\n and Djokovic, whom he played on hard in Canada last year and prevailed \nin three sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He will draw confidence from that result ahead of \nSunday’s final but arguably even more so from overcoming Nadal, on clay,\n which Djokovic had earlier described as the “ultimate challenge” \nfollowing his own 7-6 (7\/2) 7-6 (7\/4) victory over Dominic Thiem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By\n his own high standards, Nadal’s clay-court swing has been \ndisappointing. He lost in the last four in both Monte Carlo and \nBarcelona, arriving in Madrid without winning either tournament for the \nfirst time since 2015.”It’s a lost chance,” admitted five-time champion \nNadal after his third straight semi-final defeat on clay.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Novak Djokovic will play Stefanos Tsitsipas for the Madrid Open title after the 20-year-old Greek stunned Rafael Nadal to win a thrilling semi-final 6-4 2-6 6-3 on his fourth match point. Nadal had been a clear favourite to face Djokovic in Sunday’s showpiece at Caja Magica but the 17-time Grand Slam champion extended his stuttering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61079,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61077\/revisions\/61079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}