Stefanos Tsitsipas knows 2025 will be crucial for his career

Stefanos Tsitsipas‘ career has been below expectations so far. When he played his first tournaments on the professional tour, fans and insiders expected the Greek to follow in the footsteps of the Big 3, after achieving great results as a junior.

All fans remember the great victory 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 1000s during his career (everything in monte carlo), Tsitsipas has not yet made the leap in quality expected of a player of his talent.

The Greek player has yet to win a Grand Slam title and that goal seems far away lately. After the finals at the French Open in 2021 and the Australian Open in 2023, the champion from Athens and his game did not improve anymore.

Young talents such as Carlos Alcaraz And Jannik Sinner have far surpassed him, and proved to be their ATP tour benchmarks for the coming decade. The Spanish ace and the Italian champion highlighted all the current shortcomings of Stefanos, who abruptly severed professional ties with his father Apostles in 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, who has long been far from being the one who is capable of emerging as one of the most promising players among tennis players born in the 90s, has in recent months moments of great tension with his fatherthat they pressured him to decide to change his team.

In an interview with ANT1, another central figure for the 26-year-old Greek mother said, Julia Salnikovamade statements on the subject, sharing unpublished details about Stefanos’ rift with Apostolos and his childhood. Salnikova revealed how the relationship between the two fractured after his son’s defeat to Borna Coric at the 2020 US Open, played behind closed doors due to the COVID pandemic, a match where Tsitsipas asked his father to leave the stadium in the middle of the match. “There were things in Stefanos’ 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 has to find another coach.

Since 2020, when he lost at the US Open, we decided together with Apostolos that Stefanos would change coaches. 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 constant conflicts and this is why Stefanos finally made the decision to change coaches. We do not 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 about the difficult childhood of the Greek tennis player, who was also bullied at school. “When he was a child, Stefanos also played football, but in the end he decided to play tennis, and it was a good decision. He was a very quiet and shy child. Because of sports, he did not go to 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 hit him. It wasn’t easy for Stefanos, but he got through it because tennis was in his head and that kept him going. Tennis helped him a lot,” Yulia said.

Tsitsipas needs rest

Stefanos’ mother concluded with a story about his return to Paula Badosa. “The most important thing is that Stefanos is very happy to be back with Paula Badosa. If he is happy, I am too. When they broke up, we went through difficult times, I took Paula’s side, we talked and that’s how they got back together”.

The former French Open finalist will try to end the season brilliantly, in order to regain confidence for 2025. Tsitsipas has the weapons to do very well in the Australian Opena tournament in which he always showed his best tennis, unlike the US Open. The Greek ace will not be among the favorites in Melbourne Park, but he will start behind players like Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic, Medvedev and Zverev. Less pressure could help him to play a great tournament and return to the player he was in the past.