Stefanos Tsitsipas repeats controversial Nick Kyrgios antics during Jack Draper defeat

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Stefanos Tsitsipas let his temper get the better of him once again as Jack Draper pulled off an upset at the Montreal Masters – just a month after his explosive Wimbledon clash with Nick Kyrgios. Draper has enjoyed a breakout season on the ATP Tour in 2022 which included four challenger titles earlier this year.

Heading into Wimbledon, the Brit broke into the top-100 for the first time in his young career and defeated Zizou Bergs in his first-ever Grand Slam win. And the 20-year-old faced the toughest test of his young career when he took on world No 5 Tsitsipas at the Montreal Masters this week.

Draper qualified for the main draw after beating both Roberto Marcora and Quentin Halys before picking up a comfortable victory in the opening round against Frenchman Hugo Gaston. Tsitsipas was going to provide a much tougher test, but it was Draper who got off to the stronger start.

Draper found the early break in the first set and Tsitsipas soon began to cut a frustrated figure on his side of the net. Tsitsipas’ last tournament heading into Montreal was Wimbledon when he blew up in his feisty clash with Kyrgios.

The Greek tennis ace tried multiple times to smash a ball at Kyrgios during the match and also came close to hitting a fan at one stage. And Tsitsipas took the same approach when he was 3-1 down to Draper in the opening set.

Tsitsipas was serving at 30-30 as Draper just about managed to get his return over the net, leaving Tsitsipas with a simple smash to win the point. Draper had seemingly given up on returning back with Tsitsipas having the entire court to win the point.

But the 23-year-old drew gasps from the crowd watching as he elected to crash his shot directly towards Draper, who had to skip out the way. In a surprise turn of events, Tsitsipas ended up hitting his shot out of the court and losing the point.

To Draper’s credit, he didn’t react to it and had a few opportunities to gain the double break. But Tsitsipas eventually held serve and even broke back to level the match but Draper regained his advantage late on before serving out to take a one-set lead.

It was much of the same in the second as Draper continued to go toe-to-toe with the Greek ace with a tiebreak needed. And Draper did just enough to hold off Tsitsipas in the biggest win of his young career.

The Brit now progresses to face Gael Monfils in the round-of-16 later this evening. The Frenchman is playing in his first tournament since the Madrid Open back in May when he lost to Novak Djokovic.

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