UTS semifinals set: Tsitsipas vs. Goffin, Gasquet vs. Berrettini

On Sunday, Matteo Berrittini survived Richard Gasquet in a sudden-death thriller, while Stefanos Tsitsipas blitzed an overmatched David Goffin 3 quarters to none. The "Greek-God" will face off against "The Hammer" for the inaugural Ultimate Tennis Showdown title at 4 PM ET.

Stefanos Tsitsipas outdid David Goffin at UTS on Saturday, improving his record at the event to an incredible 8-1 and clinching him the No. 1 spot on the UTS rankings.

The result also confirmed Sunday’s semifinal match-ups: No. 1 Tsitsipas and No. 4 Goffin will play each other again for a spot in the final, while No. 2 Richard Gasquet faces No. 3 Matteo Berrettini.

The four players had already secured the Top 4 spots on the UTS rankings, but the order of those places—and in turn who played who in the semifinals—came down to Saturday’s results.

Tsitsipas and Goffin have had a tight rivalry on the ATP Tour—though the young Greek leads their tour-level head-to-head, 4-2, two of his wins have been tight three-setters and could have gone either way.

But Tsitsipas was in total control from start to finish in their UTS meeting on Saturday, ripping 19 winners—including eight aces—to just 11 unforced errors, and winning all four quarters, 18-12, 16-13, 14-11, 22-11. The Belgian, meanwhile, finished the match with 11 winners to 25 unforced errors.

Tsitsipas’ victory over Goffin was his first 4-0 win of the event.

“I’m surprised myself,” the Greek said afterwards. “Let’s keep it going. It feels great. I just need to adjust my game accordingly, nothing to worry about, keep playing aggressive tennis, have everything under my control. I played a few points in practice, and that helped me get more awakened.”

His only loss in nine UTS matches leading into the semifinals came against Dominic Thiem three weekends ago. The Austrian was only able to play two weekends of UTS due to scheduling conflicts.

The other semifinal match on Sunday will pit Gasquet against Berrettini, a rematch of their UTS match from two weekends ago. That was a 4-0 win for Berrettini: 13-12, 21-11, 12-11, 16-14.

The Italian also won their only previous ATP Tour meeting in the first round of the US Open last year, 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. He ended up making it all the way to his first Grand Slam semifinal that fortnight.

Gasquet actually played one of the other four round-robin matches on Saturday’s schedule, improving to 7-2 at the event with a 3-1 victory over fellow Frenchman Benoit Paire, 19-9, 13-17, 18-13, 19-10.

Berrettini, who wasn’t in action at the UTS on Saturday, finished with a 5-3 win-loss record.

The other three matches on Saturday saw Corentin Moutet battle past Holger Rune, 3-2; Dustin Brown edge Alexei Popyrin, 3-2; and Elliot Benchetrit outdo Feliciano Lopez, 3-1.

The Sunday schedule will see Gasquet and Berrettini play at 5:15pm local time, followed by Tsitsipas and Goffin at 6:30pm. The winners of the two semifinals will play each other in the final at 10:00pm.