[Singles — Second Round]
Valentin Vacherot (Monaco) [8] def. Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece), 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4

■ “I had a chance to win, but I ended up losing. It’s really frustrating,” Tsitsipas said at his press conference. Looking back on the match, he said, “There were moments when I was playing some of my best tennis.” In the first set, he broke Vacherot in the fifth game and went on to close it out comfortably without giving his opponent a single break point. He also broke serve in the third game of the second set and built a 4-2 lead. However, he admitted, “There were moments when I wasn’t able to hit the ball properly when I needed to, and there were also times when I couldn’t fully swing through my serves.” Vacherot broke back in the eighth game to level the set. In the tiebreak, Tsitsipas fought back from 1-5 by winning four straight points, but then dropped a crucial point on a costly forehand error and eventually surrendered the set. In the third set, he struggled to win points against Vacherot’s high-speed serves which came in at around 220 km/h from the 193-cm-tall player.

■ The 28-year-old Tsitsipas is a former world No. 3. After a dip in form, his ranking fell as low as No. 87 in June this year. He has since climbed back to No. 44, but entered this tournament through qualifying. “I saw this as a chance to earn ranking points here and build confidence in my game,” Tsitsipas said. Having narrowly missed out on reaching the quarterfinals of an ATP 500 tournament for the second time this year, Tsitsipas repeatedly described the result as “disappointing” and “frustrating.” At the same time, he said, “Right now, I have nothing to lose. If you’re in the top 10 or top 20, you’re in a position where you’re being chased. Right now, I’m in a position where I can give everything I have and chase the players above me. I can also look at it as having nowhere to go but up.” Tsitsipas has already turned his attention to what comes next, saying, “Right now, my mind is on the next tournament and the next match.”

(Japan Tennis Association)