While he officially passed the milestone of 600 victories on the circuit the day after his victory against the world No.5, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the French Richard Gasquet lost in the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 tournament in Stuttgart against Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in straight sets 6-4, 7-5 on Friday. Despite this pentrite disillusion, Gasquet is installed in 4th place among the players with the most victories on the circuit still in activity.
In the semi-finals, Struff, 24th player in the world, will face the Pole Hubert Hurcasz, 14th in the world, who eliminated in the quarter-finals the Australian Christopher O’Connell in two sets (6-4, 6-4).
Struff, who had a break point to save on his first game, converted his only break point in the first set to win the set. In the second set, the German was imperial on his serve, dropping twelve of his eighteen aces from the encounter. He broke at 6-5 and did not miss his chance to sign his first victory over Gasquet, in just under 1h15.
“I’m very happy, Richard beat me twice before this game and knocked out Stefanos Tsitsipas yesterday. I have won many matches in recent months, and I have built up confidence. The start of the game was better for Richard”, explained Struff at the end of the game.
The other semi-final in Stuttgart will oppose the American France Tiafoe (12th player in the world) to the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics. Tiafoe dominated Italian Lorenzo Musetti in three sets (6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/4), 6-2), while Fucsovics only needed two sets to take the lead. American Taylor Fritz (6-4, 7-5).
