Stefanos Tsitsipas suffers shock first-round loss to Daniel Galán at US Open
Updated
Stefanos Tsitsipas suffered a big shock on Sunday when he fell to fellow Spaniard Daniel Galán in a wildcard match at the US Open.
Tsitsipas started the match with 3-0 up in the first set, but Galán battled back to level the set at a tie-break with a two-set deficit.
The Spaniard fought back in the second set, breaking Tsitsipas to win the set 6-5.
On the way to his second-round exit, Tsitsipas endured a torrid time, with a run of 18 unforced errors on his serve and a total of 12 unforced errors on his own serve in the third set.
Earlier in the day, Tsitsipas suffered a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 defeat to Australian qualifier Kevin Anderson.
He next faces Germany’s Mischa Zverev on Wednesday, but it looks like he’s off to the races now. For Tsitsipas, though, that won’t be enough to save his match against Galán.
Tsitsipas, a member of the 2012 US Open Champion’s Club, is a former world No.1 player and has won four Grand Slam titles. He’s ranked 15th in the world. Galán, meanwhile, plays in the second week of his first Grand Slam appearance.
The match, which lasted more than 12 hours, was the third longest Grand Slam third-round match in history. The longest previous match was in 1988, when Roger Federer defeated Pete Sampras in a third-round match.
Galán took control early with an aggressive play to extend the set with a 5-4 break in the opening game. Tsitsipas managed to hold serve for a 5-5 tie-break before Galán got his breakthrough in the second set.
In the first game of the second set, Tsitsipas found a way to get back into the match, but Galán was up to the challenge and broke back to love. Tsitsipas responded with a huge overhead that gave him the break, but Galán immediately took control.
The Spaniard kept serving for the next couple of games and held for 4-
