Stefanos Tsitsipas survived a scare against Jiri Vesely in his opening match at the French Open.The 2021 finalist seemed to have the contest well under control after a slow start when he moved two sets ahead of his Czech opponent but Vesely took the third and had three set points at 6-3 in the fourth-set tie-break to force a decider.Fifth seed Tsitsipas saved all of them, though, before clinching a 7-5 6-3 4-6 7-6 (7) victory and roaring with relief.The Greek knows he will need to play better going forward, saying: "It was a great comeback from me on that tie-breaker.
I didn't really play the way I wanted to play."I started just going more to the ball, being much more aggressive on my shot-making, and I kind of dictated a little bit better.
The match was very inconsistent from my side. I felt like I haven't played a match with so much inconsistency in a very long time."There weren't a lot of rallies in play.
He was serving big, so I had to find ways to change that. At times I felt like my footwork was lousy."But otherwise I'm happy with how things turned around, and my fighting spirit went on full display in those last few points of the tie-breaker.