Stat of the Day: Stefanos Tsitsipas nets 15th win in a row against players with one-handed backhands

Stefanos Tsitsipas hit a pair of milestones with his 7-5, 7-5 victory over Lorenzo Musetti in Rome on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

First of all, he’s now through to the 20th Masters 1000 quarterfinal of his career. He’s a two-time champion at this level, winning both of those titles in Monte Carlo in 2021 and 2022, and he’s reached four more finals, seven more semifinals, and now seven more quarterfinals.

And secondly, he’s now won an incredible 15 matches in a row against fellow players with one-handed topspin backhands—he hasn’t lost to another player with a one-hander since 2020, when he fell to Dominic Thiem in the round-robin stage of the ATP Finals that year.

TSITSIPAS VS FELLOW ONE-HANDERS SINCE START OF 2021 (15-0):
d. Musetti in 2021 Acapulco SFs, 6-1, 6-3
d. Evans in 2021 Monte Carlo SFs, 6-2, 6-1
d. Musetti in 2021 Lyon SFs, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0
d. Kohlschreiber in 2021 Olympics 1st Rd, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3
d. Dimitrov in 2021 Vienna 1st Rd, 7-6 (6), 6-4
d. Dimitrov in 2022 Barcelona 3rd Rd, 6-1, 6-4
d. Dimitrov in 2022 Madrid 3rd Rd, 6-3, 6-4
d. Dimitrov in 2022 Rome 2nd Rd, 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (4)
d. Musetti in 2022 Roland Garros 1st Rd, 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2
d. Evans in 2022 Paris 2nd Rd, 6-3, 6-4
d. Dimitrov in 2023 United Cup RR, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4)
d. Shapovalov in 2023 Barcelona 3rd Rd, 6-3, 6-2
d. Musetti in 2023 Barcelona SFs, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3
d. Thiem in 2023 Madrid 2nd Rd, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5)
d. Musetti in 2023 Rome 4th Rd, 7-5, 7-5

Tsitsipas and Musetti are currently the two highest-ranked players with one-handed backhands—they’re No. 5 and No. 19 on the ATP rankings, respectively—and after Tsitsipas took the first set, it looked like Musetti was building a comeback, breaking in the opening game of the second set and eventually finding himself serving up 3-1, 30-0.

Tsitsipas got the break back and brought up triple match point a few games later with Musetti serving at 4-5, 0-40—after missing out on the first three, Tsitsipas even had a fourth match point at ad-out.

The Greek ended up missing that one too but finally closed it out on his fifth match point two games later, rifling an unreturnable backhand return down the line to end it at 1:43am on Wednesday morning.

Awaiting the No. 5 seed in the quarterfinals will be No. 15 seed Borna Coric, who rallied from a set down for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Hungarian qualifier Fabian Marozsan—conqueror of No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz.

Tsitsipas won the pair’s only previous meeting in 2023, a 6-0, 6-7 (4), 7-5 victory at United Cup in January, but Coric had won their last three meetings in a row before that and leads overall, 3-2.