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Thirty-second seed Seed Ugo Humbert of France beat fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 6-4 3-6 7-5 in the third round of the Shanghai Masters on Monday, October 9. The match lasted two hours and 11 minutes
Humbert will face J.J. Wolf of the United States in the next round on Wednesday. After his impressive performance against Tsitsipas, Humbert will fancy his chances of reaching the quarterfinals at least.
On that note, here's a look at two things that stood out in the match:
#1 Humbert’s down-the-line shots helped him gain the ascendancy
Humbert hit a good number of winners with his down-the-line shots off either wing. The Frenchman's crosscourt forehand pushed Tsitsipas to his backhand side, which then allowed the former to pull the trigger down the line with his forehand.
Moreover, Humbert also hit a few solid down-the-line shots off his backhand from the ad court to stun the Greek. Humbert broke Tsitsipas early in the first set to take a 2-0 lead and this was enough to win the first set.
#2 Tsitsipas played a few drop shots, but Humbert proved to be the better player in the end
Noticing that Humbert was targeting his backhand with the crosscourt forehand, Tsitsipas started playing drop shots off his backhand to upset the Frenchman’s rhythm. That tactic worked for some time as the fourth seed managed to win a few points by dragging his opponent to the net.
The Greek also went around his backhand often to hit inside-out forehands which made Humbert stretch to his left. That tactic did not allow the Frenchman to hit his forehand with enough power.
The Greek opened up a 4-1 lead in the second set and held on to win it 6-3. However, Humbert found additional power with his groundstrokes in the third set and hit a few stunning winners.
The Frenchman broke to take a 2-0 lead but Tsitsipas soon broke back and then leveled the score at 4-4. But Humbert held his nerve and defended superbly in the 12th game to get the break of serve and win the enthralling contest.
The Frenchman won 84% of the points off his first serve, which was marginally better than Tsitsipas’ 80%. The Greek was able to convert only two of his eight break-point opportunities while Humbert converted three out of six. This proved to be the difference in the end.
