(Tennis news) Stefanos Tsitipas, earlier this year entered the Australian Open final, where he lost to Novak Djokovic, and he has won 31 of 41 matches so far this season. He also advanced to the Barcelona Open final as well as the Italian Open semifinals.

In Stuttgart at the Boss Open, Stefanos Tsitsipas made his final outing on the circuit. As the top seed, he advanced without a match in the second round, where he took on Richard Gasquet. The Frenchman prevailed in a tiebreak in the first set, which was hotly contested. Tsitsipas won the second set 6-2 to send the contest into a tie break. Then, Gasquet won the last set 7-5 to secure his spot in the quarterfinals.

Gregoire Barrere, on the other hand, has prevailed in 13 of 26 games played thus far this season, reaching the third round of two Masters 1000 competitions in Miami and Rome. After losing in the first round of the French Open, the Frenchman began the grass-court season in the Stuttgart Boss Open. The 29-year-old defeated Oscar Otte 6-4, 6-3 to win the opening match of the ATP 250 competition. He then played sixth-seeded Lorenzo Musetti, who made a great start by taking the first set 6-3. Musetti advanced to the quarterfinals by winning both sets by the same score.

Head-to-Head

Tsitsipas defeated Barrere 6-3, 6-4, 6-7(3), 7-5 at Wimbledon in 2018, giving him a 1-0 advantage in their matchup.

Predictions

After falling early at the Boss Open in Stuttgart, Tsitsipas will be anxious to open the Halle Open with a win and will enter the match as the clear favourite. The Greek will be eager to control the action from the baseline and rule the service games. He will try to take advantage of having one of the strongest backhands on the ATP Tour.

In his last two matches, Barrere served nine aces, and he plans to serve many more against Tsitsipas. The French player will need to be strong on his serve while searching for the occasional key break. He cannot afford to make too many mistakes and hand Tsitsipas an advantage. Stefanos Tsitsipas should have little issue winning the match and moving on to the second round of the Halle Open because she is by far the better player of the two.

Stefanos Tsitsipas to win in 2 sets

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