Heir Apparent Tsitsipas Moves on in Stockholm

There are some tantalizing matchups in the Stockholm Open quarterfinals today, with Greek sensation Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber a highlight of the day’s play. Other matchups include an all American battle between John Isner and world number 62 Tennys Sandgren, Jack Sock vs Ernest Gulbis, and South Korea’s Hyeon Chung vs Fabio Fognini.

Stefanos Tsitsipas by Keith Allison under CC BY 2.0

20-year-old Tsitsipas came through a difficult last 16 match against Australian John Milliman 6-4 3-6 6-3 to continue his quest to break into the top 10. That won’t happen this year, but it seems certain that the Barcelona Open and Rogers Cup runner-up will make that jump next year. The Greek is fantastic to watch and will fancy his chances of lifting the title in Stockholm.

First, he must get through 34-year-old Philipp Kohlschreiber, and while on paper Tsitsipas will be the firm favorite, the experienced German is a wily player and won’t go down without a fight. Tsitsipas won the pair’s only previous meeting, winning 4-6 6-3 6-4, in Dubai this year.

The first match on in Stockholm is Chung vs Fognini. Number two seed Fognini has had an excellent 2018 which has seen him rise to 14 in the world, and finally, find the kind of consistency that merits his unbelievable talent. He will face 27th ranked Chung in what will be their first meeting.

Then at 18.50 British time, Stockholm will be taken over by the Americans as number one seed John Isner faces fellow countryman Tennys Sandgren. Sandgren has had an excellent run through to the quarterfinals, beating 5th seed Lucas Pouille 6-4 6-4 in the first round, before coming through 7-6 3-6 6-3 against Oscar Otte in the second round. World number 11 Isner will be a big step up though, and victory for Sandgren would surely be one of the biggest of his career.

The evening will finish off with another cracking matchup between Jack Sock and Ernest Gulbis. Sock will be looking to put a terrible year behind him having won just 6 matches for 18 loses this year. He will face a true wildcard of men’s tennis, Latvian Ernest Gulbis. Gulbis is a wonderful talent, and former top ten player, but he has spent the last few years languishing outside of the world’s top 100.

It may only be a Masters 250 event, but there has been some top tennis throughout the Stockholm Open and it has provided us with a great lineup for the quarterfinals. We will be watching closely to see who makes it to the semi-finals!

If we had to guess we would say Isner vs Gulbis and Tsitsipas vs Chung - but who would choose?