CASABLANCA, October 14, 2016
Stefanos Tsitsipas has reached his second consecutive title match on the ATP Challenger Tour, rallying past Polish youngster Kamil Majchrzak 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 in Friday’s semi-finals in Casablanca. The 18-year-old from Greece, who is the current number one in the combined juniors rankings, hit 11 aces and broke his opponent’s serve two times to prevail in two hours and 15 minutes.
Tsitsipas advanced to the final of last week’s €42,500 Morocco Tennis Tour event in Mohammedia, finishing runner-up to Austrian Gerald Melzer. He has already captured four ITF Pro Circuit titles this season and will next face French qualifier Maxime Janvier, who defeated Arthur de Greef 6-4, 6-3.
The one hour and 23 minutes encounter was overshadowed by a bizarre incident during a rain delay in the second set, as the Court Central was dried by setting part of the court on fire.
“We had a long rain break and the side of the court was still holding a lot of water in the surface. To solve this, you pour gas on it and set it alight,” said ATP Challenger Tour supervisor Carl Baldwin. “This isn’t commonly done, but I have seen it before.”
In the doubles final, top seeds Roman Jebavy from the Czech Republic and Andrej Martin from Slovakia claimed the title, winning 6-4, 6-2 over Croatian tandem of Dino Marcan and Antonio Sancic. The encounter lasted 55 minutes.
Víťazi štvorhry v Casablance 😉
Doubles winners! @ATPChallenger #Casablanca #Morocco #atpchallenger @EMPIRETennis @TCEMPIRETrnava pic.twitter.com/mrm3AjXLa4— Andrej Martin (@AndrejMartinSVK) 14. Oktober 2016
