Kubler-Hijikata make Australia proud; anxiety beats Tsitsipas in the 2023 Australian Open final

I watched Tsitsipas' matches throughout the United Cup that preceded the Australian Open and all his games in the latter.

I could not but be impressed that he won all four of his United Cup singles matches and then did not drop a set until his five set victory over the mercurial Sinner in the forth round of the Australian Open.

Having won the first two sets convincingly against Sinner, Tsitsipas looked like a certain winner.

But Sinner started to do a 'Djokovic' on him and won the next two sets.

Was Sinner able to do a full Djokovic-flip, by winning the decisive fifth set too?

No, Tsitsipas, did not have a bar of it.

He bounced back valiantly and took the fifth set decisively.

Now this is exactly the kind of resilience that a player needs against Djokovic, even when that player wins the first two sets and when then Djokovic sets out to destroy him over the next three sets.

I was most impressed how Tsitsipas was able to move to a higher level, regain his command of first serves and fight for every point as if his life depended on it in the decisive fifth set against Sinner. And then he followed up with and emphatic four-set win against Khachanov in the semi-final.

In his previous encounters with Djokovic, the latter was able to grind down Tsitsipas' resistance in Grand Slams.

But throughout this season, and specifically in being able to come back after two lost sets and still crush the potentially brilliant Sinner in the fifth set, Tsitsipas seems to have developed a 'never say die' attitude to his play.

He was able to save every break point from Lehecka in the Quarter-final that followed, including a come-back from 0:40 to win a game.