Two of the top four seeds in the men’s singles draw will face each other in the 2023 Australian Open final. On Sunday, the fourth seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia will face the third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece. Even though Tsitsipas is ranked one seed higher than Djokovic, and can grab the number one position in the world with a championship victory, one must remember that Tsitsipas does not have a grand slam singles title to his name as of yet, while Djokovic has won 21 grand slam titles, including a record nine Australian Open championships.
On Friday in the men’s semifinals, Tsitsipas beat Karen Khachanov of Russia, the 18th seed, 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3. In this match it seemed like Tsitsipas was going to win in straight sets, however Khachanov broke Tsitsipas while the Greek was serving for the match. Khachanov then forced a tiebreak, which he won 8-6. Tsitsipas then put his fourth set struggles behind him and dominated the fourth set. One statistic that went in Tsitsipas’s favour was the ace. Tsitsipas had 18 aces, while Khachanov had 10.
Djokovic meanwhile clobbered the unseeded American Tommy Paul. In the first set, Paul actually broke Djokovic late in the set, before Djokovic prevailed 7-5. The second and third sets were all Djokovic, as he dominated Paul in winning 12 of 15 games in winning 6-1, 6-2.
Djokovic meanwhile has dominated Tsitsipas in winning 10 of 12 meetings held-to-head, including the last nine meetings. This will be a rematch of the 2021 French Open Final, in which Djokvic lost the first two sets before coming back to win, 6-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
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