The Polish player came from a set down to stun the Greek favourite in Miami
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Hubert Hurkacz fought back from a set down to shock the No. 2 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals of the Miami Open 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. In a game where Tsitsipas was billed as the favourite, Hurkacz flipped the script, dug in deep to reach his first ever Masters 1000 semifinal. Riding high on confidence, the Pole will next face World No. 8 Andrey Rublev for a place in the final.
“It is so big [to be in my first Masters 1000 semi-final], especially in front of the crowd here in Miami. It is a super big win for me and I can’t wait for the next match,” Hurkacz was quoted by atptour.com. Hurkacz started the match slowly and the Greek took advantage of his below-par performance to bag the first set 6-2.
The Pole gave an insight into what went wrong in the first set. “He was returning very well and I had to play a lot of rallies,” added Hurkacz. “At the beginning of the match, I tried to go for too much, so then I was trying to adapt my game a little bit.”
Things hardly changed at the start of the second set with Tsitsipas calling the shots. Hurkacz then used his powerful serve to his strength as he got back into the game. Regularly moving to the net helped him disrupt Tsitsipas’ game as the Pole sealed the second set.
In a tightly-fought third-set, Hurkacz earned the crucial break at 2-2. His aggressive gameplay forced Tsitsipas to make errors as the Polish player held on to win the set and the match. “I was trying to keep fighting and that’s what I did. [I am] super pumped and happy that I was able to turn this match around,” said Hurkacz.
