Stefanos Tsitsipas has charged into his fourth Australian Open semifinal in five years as he chases an elusive breakthrough grand slam title, but it almost came crashing to a sudden stop after a moment of frustration in the third set.
Tsitsipas worked his way through the gears against Jiri Lehecka on Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night to end the young Czech's fairytale run at the quarterfinal stage with an impressive 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 victory.
The third seed is the highest-ranked player left at Melbourne Park and will face Russian Karen Khachanov for a spot in the final, but he came within a metre of being disqualified from the match.
Leading 4-3 in what turned out to be the final set, Tsitsipas was beaten by a Lehecka winner and slapped at the ball after it rebounded off the back wall.
His angry whack came close to hitting the ball kid who was moving to collect the ball.
Two-time Australian Open champion Jim Courier in commentary drew comparison to the incident at the 2020 US Open when Novak Djokovic let out his frustration on a loose ball, hitting a linesperson and ending in him defaulting his fourth-round match.
"Tsitsipas just got really lucky. He swings in anger and it nearly hits the ball kid and if it does, he's shaking hands a loser in this match," Courier said.
"You cannot do that. You have to be careful. That was dangerous.
"Linespeople are gone … but there are still people on the court and if you hit them, you are automatically disqualified."
Tsitsipas after the match said the ball was "pretty far away" from the ball kid, but acknowledged he "shouldn't have done it".
"I'm a professional tennis player. I was not aiming for the ball kid obviously. I saw the wall, just went back towards the wall," he said.
"The ball kid, in my eyes, was pretty far away from me. Would have really had to miss to hit that ball kid.
"Of course, it's not nice even to hit it back towards the wall. I personally don't think I hit it too hard. But [that] doesn't matter.
"What I did, definitely I'm not happy about that. I shouldn't have done it."
The 24-year-old, shooting for his second major final, after the 2021 French Open, said the unheralded Lehecka pushed him, despite the lopsided scoreline.
"It felt different this time from any other match but the most important thing is I found a solution," Tsitsipas said.
"It was a very difficult three-setter, one of the most difficult ones I had so far in the competition.
"I had to deal with the groundstrokes, they were coming over the racquet from the other side of the court much heavier, much deeper.
"So that was a task in which I really had to put my heart out there and give it my best."
Tsitsipas will next take on 18th seed Khachanov, who was leading Sebastian Korda 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 3-0 when the American retired with a wrist injury.
ABC/AAP
