Tennis-Thompson’s confidence rising after Tsitsipas upset
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By Rory Carroll
INDIAN WELLS, California (Reuters) – Australian Jordan Thompson mentioned his thrilling second-round upset of second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas at Indian Wells on Friday supplied the most recent increase in confidence after a sluggish begin to the yr.
The 87th ranked Thompson beat the world quantity three 7-6(0) 4-6 7-6(5) for his second profession win over a prime 10 participant and first in opposition to the Greek in three conferences.
Thompson struggled out of the gate when he fell within the first spherical of January’s Australian Open and suffered early exits in Dallas and Delray in February.
To reset he entered an ATP Challenger occasion in Georgia that he received with out dropping a set and rode that momentum into Indian Wells, the place he backed up his straight units first spherical win over Frenchman Gael Monfils by toppling Tsitsipas.
“Just a little little bit of a sluggish begin to the yr,” Thompson advised reporters.
“Received a Challenger couple weeks in the past and it was good to get these matches below my belt. I got here right here and bought a difficult draw however have come by way of it.
“I believe taking part in loads of matches helped. I simply felt snug on the match court docket and bought match match.”
Thompson held his nerve within the tight third set and embraced the second when Tsitsipas waved his arms up and right down to rally his supporters forward of the deciding tiebreaker on heart court docket.
“I truly began laughing when he was doing that,” he mentioned.
“Not that it was humorous that he was doing it however as a result of I need to be in these positions. I am having fun with the battle.”
Subsequent up for the 28-year-old from Sydney is a 3rd spherical conflict in opposition to Chilean qualifier Alejandro Tabilo.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Indian Nicely, California; Modifying by Shri Navaratnam)
