DrThe victor abstained from any gesture of victory. But a loud cry in the nearly empty square showed that something special had happened. This came from Apostolos Tsitsipas, the father and coach of his son Stephanos, and this son had just accomplished the feat of defeating the great Rafael Nadal in five sets.

This would be a great story in its own right, as the Spaniard has won nearly two-thirds of his long-distance matches in his remarkable career. But Tsitsipas increased the difficulty level considerably, as he turned things around after defeating the group 2-0 and won 3: 6, 2: 6, 7: 6, 6: 4, 7: 5 in just over four hours.

It was a match in the half on that warm evening at Rod Laver, and at first it seemed like the Greeks had no chance. Just as it happened two years ago in the same venue, when he clearly lost in three sets to Nadal in the semi-finals. Part of this first phase was the question of how the men’s tennis stars always kept the boys in check; What happened the day before in Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev seems to be repeated here.

Tsitsipas takes his chance

And when Tsitsipas lost the second set after the first, the trend was clear. In 15 years, only two players managed to defeat Nadal after such a deficit, Roger Federer in the 2005 championship in Key Biscayne and Italian Fabio Fonnini ten years later at the US Open in New York. Tsitsipas kept his mind, however, gradually working his way up to the match, being forced to break a tie in the third set and scoring with great interest how Nadal hit two balls in the area. And the moment the competitor got the chance, he seized it. Ostensibly unmoved, he now carries a new confidence.