Tsitsipas to face De Minaur in Next Gen final

Top seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex de Minaur will play for the Next Gen ATP Finals title after the top seeds came through thrilling semifinals in Milan.

Greek top seed Tsitsipas saw off Russia’s Andrey Rublev 4-3(3) 3-4(5) 4-0 2-4 4-3(2) after Australian second seed De Minaur had earlier beaten Spain’s Jaume Munar 3-4(5) 4-1 4-1 3-4(4) 4-2.

NEWS: Coach Cahill splits with No.1 Halep

Rublev, the 2017 runner-up, repeatedly pegged back Tsitsipas until the world No.15 finally broke his resistance with an impressive final tiebreak.

When exhaustion and excitement come together as one… @StefTsitsipas ????????#NextGenATP pic.twitter.com/gsqwGWnlJt

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) November 9, 2018

De Minaur looked on course for a relatively comfortable four-set win before Munar saved four match points to force a decider.

However, the Aussie broke serve at the start of the fifth set and served his way to victory.

“That’s been one of the things I’ve really worked on,” said De Minaur. “My attitude, to try and keep calm and collected.

“All credit to Jaume, he’s an incredible competitor and I knew from the start that he was never going to give up and I was going to have to win this match. I had to regroup and think about the last set.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to finish the season [than winning the title] – it would be the cherry on top off an unbelievable season for me.”

Tsitsipas and De Minaur have met seven times across junior, Challenger qualifying and ATP levels, with the Greek leading 5-2.

The final pits this year’s ATP Most Improved Player (Tsitsipas) against the ATP Newcomer of the Year (De Minaur).