Stefanos Tsitsipas narrowly avoids hitting the ball and falls behind at the Australian Open

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Speaking in his post-match press conference, Tsitsipas defended himself, insisting that the ball was nowhere close to hitting the ball.

“I saw the ball baby when the ball came back,” he said. “I’m a professional tennis player. I wasn’t clearly aiming for the ball. I saw the wall, I just turned back towards the wall. The ball kid, in my eyes, was too far away from me. To miss the ball kid hit.”

“Of course, it’s not even a good idea to slam it back against the wall. Personally, I don’t think I hit it hard. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. What I did, I’m certainly not happy about it. I shouldn’t have done it. But it was part of the moment.” My ball failed. There was a little frustration there, but things happen.”

After two matches, Tsitsipas moved on to the semi-finals by defeating Letika 6-3, 7-6(2), 6-4.

Lehecka defeated Cameron Norrie and Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the last eight but was broken on his first serve match and although he put in a creditable display it wasn’t enough to take a set from Tsitsipas.

“I can say it was an amazing kind of performance,” Tsitsipas said on court. “I felt it was different this time than the other time we played but I found a solution. I had to deal with the groundstrokes that were coming at me heavy and deep. I just put my heart out there.”

Tsitsipas will now face Karen Khachanov in the semi-finals on Friday.

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