By Chris Oddo | Friday November 9, 2018
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex de Minaur have a simple motto in Milan: Refuse to lose.
But one of them will have to fall on Saturday as the two rising stars as slated to face off in the Next Gen ATP Finals title match on Saturday after both came through on in five sets on Friday.
De Minaur battled past Spain’s Jaume Munar in an entertaining semifinal to begin the day, with the Spaniard snagging tiebreakers in the first and fourth set before falling 3-4(5), 4-1, 4-1, 3-4(4), 4-2 to Australia's De Minaur.
Munar showed a flair for the dramatic when he saved four match points in the fourth set but De Minaur, the youngest player in the draw at 19, showed his maturity when he broke early in the fifth set and managed to close out his victory without needing another tiebreaker.
De Minaur saved all five break points he faced and he has only surrendered one service break in his four matches at Milan.
If that semifinal didn’t grip fans, the second battle of Friday before Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev certainly did.
Hard-hitting Rublev pushed Tsitsipas to the brink and drove the Greek there psychologically as well—a frustrated Tsitsipas laid waste to the headset that was resting next to his chair for use in coaching timeouts, smashing it several times after he failed to close out the fourth set.
Remarkably, Tsitsipas cleared his head and came out with renewed focus in the final set and he closed out Rublev by playing a commanding fifth-set tiebreaker.
Later the Greek gave full credit to his opponent, saying that Rublev's explosiveness gave him problems all evening.
"Andrey is an amazing opponent,” he said on court after the match. “He is playing a very aggressive game which is not easy to deal with. … Huge forehand, one of the best forehands, I think, on the tour."
Tsitsipas and De Minaur have met once at the tour-level, with the Greek notching a three-set victory in October at Tokyo. Tsitsipas has also won four of six meeting the pair have contested at all other levels, including juniors.
With both players undefeated through four matches, the winner will become the second undefeated champion in two years of the Next Gen ATP Finals. Hyeon Chung won the inaugural title undefeated last season, and two months later the South Korean reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open.
Saturday’s winner will take home a total prize purse of $407,000. Players do not accrue any ranking points or titles in Milan, but the matches do count on their overall tour-level win-loss totals.