Stefanos Tsitsipas beats Karen Khachanov to reach 1st Australian Open final

Stefanos Tsitsipas had a harder time strictly following all of the rules than he did outplaying his opponent in the early going then recovered after blowing two match points late in the third set and eventually reached the final at the Australian Open for the first time by beating Karen Khachanov 76 2 64 67 6 63 on FridayThe No 3seeded Tsitsipas had been 03 in semifinals at Melbourne Park but he finally went a step further to get to the second Grand Slam championship match of his careerIt looked easy for the better part of three sets against Khachanov but Tsitsipas got broken when serving for the match at 54 in the third then failed to convert either chance to end it when he went up 64 in the ensuing tiebreaker Khachanov collected four consecutive points there erasing the match points with a pair of booming forehands Tsitsipas though regained his footing quickly grabbing a 30 lead in the fourthIf you stick around if you dedicate yourself even more and if you concentrate on these important moments Tsitsipas said it pays off quite wellNow Tsitsipas will face Novak Djokovic or unseeded American Tommy Paul in the mens singles final on SundayIf he claims his first major trophy Tsitsipas would also achieve another milestone He would rise to No 1 in the ATP rankings for the first timeI like that number Its all about you Its singular Its 1 Tsitsipas said These are the moments that Ive been working hard forDjokovic who would return to No 1 if he wins the championship has won the Australian Open nine times and owns 21 Grand Slam titles in all only Rafael Nadal with 22 has more among men and carried a 26match winning streak at Melbourne Park into Fridays second semifinal Until this week Paul never had been past the fourth round in 13 previous appearances at major tournamentsTsitsipas other run to a major final came at the 2021 French Open when he grabbed the first two sets before blowing that big lead and losing to Djokovic in fiveEarlier this week Djokovic said about Tsitsipas He has never played a final am I wrong Reminded by reporters about Roland Garros Djokovic replied Thats right Sorry my badAlso readAustralian Open Sabalenka beats Linette to reach first Grand Slam final to face RybakinaFor about 2 12 hours at Rod Laver Arena on Friday which began with nary a cloud and a temperature topping 80 degrees Fahrenheit 25 Celsius the 24yearold from Greece showed a game that was too versatile and strokes that were too consistent from all over the court for the 18thseeded Khachanov a Russian who is now 02 in Slam semifinalsThe biggest issue for Tsitsipas in that span truthfully appeared to be trying to deal with the watchful eyes of the match officials monitoring the 25second clock and the position of his feetChair umpire Nico Helwerths first warning for a time violation came while Tsitsipas served for the first set at 53 love15 Perhaps distracted he doublefaulted to trail love30 and eventually got broken thereThe serve clock elapsed again at 5all love15 and the second infraction resulted in an automatic fault prompting Tsitsipas father who coaches him along with former player Mark Philippoussis to stand up from his courtside seat Again Tsitsipas then doublefaulted again to fall behind love30 but this time he managed to hold serve and he was by far superior in the ensuing tiebreaker able to ignore a footfault call that came at 31There were more footfaults in the second set and after one Helwerth explained the problem Tsitsipas back foot was extended too far behind him while serving from the Deuce side putting his shoe beyond the middle lineTsitsipas would go on to break to 54 helped by a wild point in which he got back three overheads by Khachanov eliciting roars from the many spectators waving blueandwhite Greek flags Soon he grabbed that set He broke again to lead 21 in the third but failed to slam the door shutInstead Tsitsipas who lost in the Melbourne semifinals to Nadal in 2019 and to Daniil Medvedev in 2021 and 2022 needed to wait 40 minutes from his initial match point to his lastServing in the fourth set at 53 40love his missed a forehand volley on No 3 Uh oh he might have been forgiven for thinking But on the next point chance No 4 he hit a serve that drew a long return and was able to exhaleIm extremely happy that Im in the final now Tsitsipas said and lets see what happensThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever