Dutch tennis pro Griekspoor enters third round of a Grand Slam for the first time

Dutch tennis star Tallon Griekspoor defeated his compatriot, Botic van de Zandschulp, at the Australian Open on Wednesday. The victory marks a special milestone for tennis player Griekspoor, who has reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. Griekspoor is currently undefeated this year, and started the season with a win at the ATP tournament in Pune, India. Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas is his next opponent on Friday.

The 26-year-old started the tournament as the Dutch number 2, and the 63rd best-ranked player in the world. Griekspoor managed to survive the opening round one time at all four Grand Slam tournaments in recent years, but he failed to advance beyond the second round each time.

With his straight-sets victory over Van de Zandschulp, Griekspoor secured a place as one of the final 32 players in this year's Australian Open. Van de Zandschulp entered the tournament as the world's number 34 player and the Davis Cup team leader, but he was defeated 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 on Wednesday afternoon.

Griekspoor finished it off after 2 hours and 4 minutes with an ace, his ninth of the game. He served strongly all game and his serve was only broken once. He also broke Van de Zandschulp's serve four times.

In the first two sets, Griekspoor struck at the important moments and in both sets, one break was enough to win the set. Griekspoor looked to be much more self-confident during tense moments, and his play was more stable than Van de Zandschulp, who played erratically with alternating strong and weak moments. Griekspoor played more varied and tried to disrupt the aggressive baseline game of his doubles and training partner.

In the third set, Van de Zandschulp seemed to become more comfortable in the match, but Griekspoor immediately made up for an early break (2-0) with a nice lob. He clenched his fist to the side, and showed his disappointed compatriot no mercy. At 3-3 he made the decisive break after a failed volley by Van de Zandschulp, who had little success at the net.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, Griekspoor's next opponent, left Australian Rinky Hijikata without a chance earlier in the day. The Greek player also won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-0, 6-2. It will be the first meeting between the Griekspoor and Tsitsipas.

Unlike Griekspoor, Van de Zandschulp, who is 27 years old, already reached the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open in 2021, and he reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year. Last year he lost at the Australian Open in the third round.

The game wasn't finished until around midnight local time. The games on the side courts were postponed for a few hours due to the rain in Melbourne, and the match only start ed at 9:50 p.m. It was also moved from court 8 to court 17. Due to the bad weather and the late hour, the Dutch match was played in front of a more moderate crowd.

At the end of last year, the two also faced each other at the Dutch championships in Amstelveen when Van de Zandschulp won. Van de Zandschulp also won their last meeting at international level in 2022.

It was the first duel between two Dutch athletes at a Grand Slam since 2001. During the Australian Open 22 years ago, Jan Siemerink and Sjeng Schalken played an intense match which Siemerink won in five sets.