Stefanos Tsitsipas' career is below expectations until now. When he played his first tournaments in the professional tour, fans and insiders expected that the Greek would follow in the footsteps of the Big 3 having achieved amazing results as a junior.
All fans remember the amazing triumph over Roger Federer at the 2019 Australian Open, before losing to Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals. That same year, Stefanos won the Nitto ATP Finals in London beating Federer in the semi-finals. Despite winning three Masters 1000 during his career (all in Monte Carlo), Tsitsipas has not yet made the leap of quality that was expected from a player of his talent.
The Greek player has not yet won a Grand Slam title and this goal seems to have moved far away in recent times. After the finals played at the French Open in 2021 and the Australian Open in 2023, the champion from Athens stopped and his game did not improve anymore.
Young talents like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have largely outperformed him, proving to be their ATP tour benchmarks for the next decade. The Spanish ace and the Italian champion highlighted all the current shortcomings of Stefanos, who abruptly interrupted the professional relationship with his father Apostolos during the summer.
A difficult situation
Tsitsipas is still quite young and has time to improve his game, but the years pass and the opponents become more competitive. The Greek tennis player, a long time far away from the one able to emerge as one of the most important promises among the tennis players born in the 90s, has been through recent months moments of great tension with his father, that they pushed him to make the decision to change his team.
In an interview with ANT1, another central figure for the 26-year-old Greek mother, Yulia Salnikova, made statements on the subject, telling unpublished details about the break between Stefanos and Apostolos and his childhood. Salnikova revealed how the relationship between the two has cracked after his sons defeat against Borna Coric at the US Open 2020, played behind closed doors due to the COVID pandemic, a match during which Tsitsipas asked his father to leave the stadium in the middle of the game. "There were things in Stefanoss life that distracted him, but made him happy. He is a professional and, although he loves his father very much, he has understood that he must find another coach.
Since 2020, when he lost at the US Open, we decided together with Apostolos that Stefanos would change coach. However, four years have passed and Stefanos has achieved good results. However, I think that Stefanos and Apostolos have not had a good relationship since then, they had continuous conflicts and this is why Stefanos ended up making the decision to change coach. We dont see it as a tragedy, we are a very close family. Apostolos did not realize that he was putting too much pressure on Stefanos, he only had tennis on his head", said the mother.
Salnikova then told of a difficult childhood of the Greek tennis player, who also suffered from bullying at school. "When he was a child, Stefanos also played football, but eventually decided to play tennis, and it was a good decision. He was a very quiet and shy child. Because of the sport, he did not attend some classes and the boys in his class were not his friends, it was impossible to call them that, because they treated him very badly. There were two or three boys in his class who sometimes beat him. It wasnt easy for Stefanos, but he got through it because tennis was in his head and that kept him going. Tennis helped him a lot," said Yulia.
Tsitsipas needs serenity
Stefanos' mother concluded by talking about his return to PaulaBadosa. "The most important thing is that Stefanos is very happy to be back with Paula Badosa. If hes happy, Im happy too. When they broke up, we went through difficult times, I took the side of Paula, we talked and so they came back together".
The former French Open finalist will try to close the season brilliantly, so as to regain confidence in view of 2025.Tsitsipas has the weapons to do very well at the Australian Open, a tournament in which he always expressed his best tennis unlike the US Open. The Greek ace will not be one of the favorites at Melbourne Park, but he will start behind players like Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic, Medvedev and Zverev. Having less pressure could help him play a great tournament and return to the player he was in the past.
