Looking to find his top form for the season ahead Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas made a great start to his Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships campaign on Monday with a straight sets (7-6 6-3) win over Italian Lorenzo Sonego.

The fourth seed, a former world number three and a two-time Grand Slam finalist, has dropped to 11th in world rankings after an inauspicious start to the 2025 season.

Karen Khachanov plays a return

The 26-year-old has been struggling for form and consistency since reaching the quarterfinals at the 2024 French Open.

On Monday in Dubai, Sonego asked him some tough questions in the opening set, but Tsitsipas held his nerve to win it on tie-break before comfortably winning the second and the match.

While his serve remained steady, his return game gave him the edge, breaking his opponent twice.

“The way I dealt with my attacking shots. I had a great success into converting those into unplayable shots, causing forced errors,” he said during the on-court interview.  

“One thing that I was also pleased with, I have felt like there was a slight improvement on my returns. Despite not being able to break more often than I would have wished, I felt like I had some good, aggressive play from there.”

Next up for Tsitsipas is another tricky game against Russia’s Karen Khachanov who outclassed Dan Evans of Great Britain 6-1 6-3.

“He (Khachanov) is a good hard court player. I think that's the surface that he plays the best at. I'm going to be faced aggressive tennis against him,” Tsitsipas said.

More matches against quality players will help him get into his groove.

“This is something that I'm lacking a little bit. A little bit more confidence. I feel like with wins, the more you win, the more confident you are, the more you feel like you're unstoppable,” Tsitsipas said.

“I'm just trying to get back into the win zone and extract confidence from those type of hard-fought battles, trying to win them.”

Meanwhile, Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, who grew up in Dubai and attended the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships as a child, also advanced to the next round with an easy win over Hady Habib 6-2 6-4.

Habib made global headlines by becoming the first Lebanese player to reach the main draw at the Australian Open last month, but on Monday, he had no answers to the brilliance of Australia’s Popyrin.