Stefanos Tsitsipas held off a spirited Alex de Minaur comeback to clinch his first title of the season at the ATP 250 in Los Cabos on Saturday night.
The Greek earned his 10th career crown and extended his perfect Lexus ATP Head2Head against De Minaur to 10-0 with a 6-3, 6-4 win on the Mexican Pacific coast.
The top-seeded Tsitsipas converted four of nine break points he earned to wrap an 86-minute triumph against De Minaur.
He held three points for a double-break lead in the second set at 6-3, 3-2, 0/40 before the fifth-seeded Australian roared back into the match, but Tsitsipas notched another crucial break for 5-4 en route to securing his 39th win of the 2023 season.
Stef, hermano, ya eres mexicano! 🇲🇽
The moment @steftsitsipas became the champion in Mexico!@CaboTennisOpen | #ATC2023 pic.twitter.com/A7A9RJM2UD
— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 6, 2023
“I feel like both of us wanted to go out on the court today and show a great final,” said Tsitsipas in his on-court interview.
“I feel like it was a great match. Alex showed great tennis, I tried to keep up with the level as much as I could. I’m really happy we were able to deliver a great final today. I think that is the thing that stands out the most. It was a great match and the crowd, as always, was fully present and engaged.”
Competing at the Mifel Tennis Open by Telcel Oppo for the first time this week, Tsitsipas survived a three-set thriller against Nicolas Jarry in the quarter-finals but dropped no more than seven games in his other three victories over John Isner, Borna Coric and De Minaur on the way to his first outdoor hard-court title.
Tsitsipas’ first hard-court crown in almost three years
It was the 24-year-old’s first hard-court crown since he won Marseille indoors almost three years ago.
Tsitsipas will leapfrog Casper Ruud to No. 4 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings on Monday as a result of his Los Cabos run. The Greek has also risen one spot in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin this week, moving above Andrey Rublev into fourth as he chases a spot at the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals for the fifth consecutive year.
De Minaur, one of the grittiest players on Tour, has scavenged just one set in his past eight meetings with Tsitsipas.
The Greek champion has been ranked as high as world No. 3 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he first achieved on 9 August 2021, making him the highest-ranked Greek player in history alongside Maria Sakkari.
Tsitsipas was the champion at the 2019 ATP Finals, becoming the youngest winner of the year-end championships in eighteen years.
He has won ten ATP singles titles (including two Masters 1000 championships) and has contested two major finals at the 2021 French Open and 2023 Australian Open, finishing runner-up to Novak Djokovic both times.
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