ATP Finals: Tsitsipas beats Medvedev in a battle of debutants

Stefanos Tsitsipas made a winning start to the ATP Finals after defeating Daniil Medvedev 7-6(5), 6-4 in the early match up on Monday. It was a World Tour finals debut for both the youngsters and Tsitsipas emerged the winner. 

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In the match that lasted for one hour and 42 minutes, Tsitsipas and Medvedev were evenly matched throughout the first set, which entered the tie-break. The Greek stepped up when it mattered and broke Medvedev to take the first set. Tsitsipas continued to play his fine form in the second set, not allowing the Russian to move forward and finally breaking him to win the set and his first match against Medvedev. 

After the match, Tsitsipas said, "I watched this event when it was first held in London. I used to watch it on TV and dream of potentially playing it. It’s such an important event and pure joy to play here. It’s been a long way to come here, so I’m really grateful for the people who really believed in me. It means a lot. It’s one of the most important victories in my career so far. I gave myself a big boost today, kept believing, kept fighting. It’s such a relief. It’s not easy coming in knowing you’ve lost five times before, but I made a deal with myself that I’ll keep trying until I get it. It doesn’t matter if it’s 10, 20 times. This victory means a lot to me and this crowd means a lot to me. So much love, so much support, Greek flags everywhere. It almost feels like I’m playing in Athens.”

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The two players, along with Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev are a part of the Andre Agassi group, whereas Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Dominic Thiem, and Matteo Berrettini form the Bjorn Borg group. The eight players will compete in a round-robin format to qualify for the next round in the year-ender tournament which sees eight highest-ranked players in the world compete to lift the ATP Cup.

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