Opa!Smash some plates. High-kick into a Zorba sirtaki. Pass the ouzo.(Pass out from the ouzo.)Greeks gods, tennis gods, the whole panoply has been smiling down on Stefanos Tsitsipas, from A Taste of the Danforth, where he hung out for a bit on the weekend, to the Aviva Centre acropolis.On his 20th birthday, he’ll be in the final of the Rogers Cup as an unseeded phenomenon. And come Monday, however Sunday turns out, he will be world No. 15, breaking into the top 20 for the first time.At the end of 2017, he was a No. 91 outlier. Somewhere around magma level a year before that.The Athenian overcame exhaustion, stress — he was pressured on just about every point — even the keen expectation of an adoring crowd, to prevail in three sets over Kevin Anderson on Semis Saturday, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (7).Tsitsipas fended off all four break points he faced to keep his serve intact. He converted the only break of the match.He didn’t flinch — hardly — under the bombardment of a power server, most significantly inside the duress of a third-set tiebreak.Anderson ran his opponent for miles around the court, side to side, front and back, not counting the extra kilometre or so Tsitsipas put on himself, pacing in amped-up circles before serving or preparing to receive. He was in perpetual motion, fist-pumping a winner, muttering over a missed shot and, at one point, making a loco motion at his temple after stutter-stepping back to deuce on a forehand that caromed off the top of the net.Living la vida loco, in T.O.A giddy-crazy week it’s been for a young man making his bones on the ATP tour, into just his second Masters 1000 final — he lost to Rafael Nadal at the Barcelona Open in April — having knocked off four of the top 10 seeds in Toronto, the youngest player to pull off that trick since the tour was established in 1900.Auf Wiedersehen Dominic Thiem. Zbogom Novak Djokovic. Proschay Alexander Zverev. Ta Anderson.Hello Nadal. The ...
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