ATP Tour

Tsitsipas 'precise' in surging past Zhang

Ninth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas wasted little time Friday when he displayed a squeaky-clean baseline performance en route to a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 third-round victory against Zhang Zhizhen at Roland Garros.

The Greek freely moved around the court and tightly hugged the baseline, ripping the felt off the ball with first-strike aggression to continue his quest for a first major title.

"I did feel today like my tennis was formed into a very fluid game," Tsitsipas assessed in his on-court interview. "The ball was coming off the racquet really nicely. I was able to construct my points with patience and create some really good angles in some of the rallies.

"I was really precise in my decision making, but also in my shot placement. I felt like it was going deep, it was opening the court. It's a great feeling when you are able to produce tennis like this."

Tsitsipas was dominant on serve under the Court Suzanne-Lenglen roof, winning 83 per cent of his first-serve points across the one-hour, 31-minute match, during which he did not face a break point, according to Infosys Stats.

Doing his thing 💪 @steftsitsipas | @rolandgarros | #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/WOeXFGg0FE

— ATP Tour (@atptour) May 31, 2024

The Monte-Carlo champion, now 27-9 on the season, crushed 30 winners to 20 unforced errors in his first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Rome quarter-finalist Zhang.

"I would assess today's performance as one of the best matches I have played so far this tournament," Tsitsipas said. "It's great to see myself in a position to get out there and play so effectively but also accurately at the same time."

Up next for the No. 9 player in the PIF ATP Rankings is Matteo Arnaldi, who upset sixth seed Andrey Rublev 7-6(6), 6-2, 6-4.