A tiebreak, and four times as many aces
Stefanos Tsitsipas served like a man who suddenly remembered what he used to be. Overnight in New York the Greek fired four times as many aces as Jiri Lehecka, closed the match with a service winner, and beat the 18th seed 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), 6-1 to reach the US Open fourth round for the first time in his career.
The third set decided everything. Lehecka, a quarter-finalist at Flushing Meadows last year, double-faulted in the tiebreak and misfired from the baseline. Tsitsipas answered with two aces back to back. Once the set was gone, so was the Czech. The fourth went 6-1 in barely any time at all.
The numbers back up what the scoreline suggests. Tsitsipas finished with 34 winners to Lehecka’s 22, and 30 unforced errors against his opponent’s 41. He also had the crowd. New York’s large Greek-American contingent made itself heard, and Tsitsipas told them afterwards that they carried him through the match.
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Two years of waiting
This is the furthest Tsitsipas has gone at a major in more than two years. He had already beaten Arthur Fils in the first round, one of the rising names on the tour, so the run is not a fluke draw.
At 28, the Greek is a two-time Grand Slam finalist who spent the first half of the decade as a fixture in the top 10, groomed by the press as an heir to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Then Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner arrived and the conversation moved on without him. Back problems wrecked his 2025 season on top of that.
He says the pain is gone. “This season might not have been the best that I’ve had, but at least I wake up every single day, I’m happy that I don’t have any pain, and I know I can go practice without any uncertainty of how my body is going to respond.”
A new team behind him
In June, Tsitsipas parted ways with his father Apostolos, who had also been his coach, and called the split permanent. He now works with Thomas Perrin and Patrick Mouratoglou. Asked whether the timing was right, he leaned on a Greek proverb: better late than never.
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