Stefanos Tsitsipas

Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greek: Στέφανος Τσιτσιπάς, pronounced [ˈstefanos t͡sit͡siˈpas]; born 12 August 1998) is a Greek professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 3 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), first achieved in August 2021 – making him the highest-ranked Greek men's tennis player. Tsitsipas has won twelve ATP Tour singles titles, including the 2019 ATP Finals and three Masters 1000 events. He has contested two major finals, at the 2021 French Open and 2023 Australian Open, making him the first Greek tennis player to reach a Grand Slam final. He has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 64, achieved on 29 August 2022.

Born into a tennis family – his mother Julia was a professional on the WTA Tour and his father Apostolos trained as a tennis coach – Tsitsipas was introduced to the sport at age three and began taking lessons at age six. As a junior, he was ranked No. 1 in the world, and won the 2016 Wimbledon boys' doubles event.

Winning his first match on the ATP Tour in late 2017, Tsitsipas quickly ascended the ATP rankings the following year. He won his first title at the 2018 Stockholm Open and made a runner-up finish at the 2018 Canadian Open, becoming the youngest player to defeat four top ten opponents in a single tournament at the latter event. After finishing that season with an exhibition title at the Next Gen ATP Finals, Tsitsipas remained an almost constant fixture in the top 10 of the ATP rankings until 2024. He won his first Masters 1000 event at the 2021 Monte-Carlo Masters, an event he won twice more in 2022 and 2024. Tsitsipas was named the Greek Male Athlete of the Year for 2019.

Early life and background

Tsitsipas was born on 12 August 1998 to Apostolos Tsitsipas and Julia Apostoli (née Salnikova) in Athens. His father is Greek and was born in Proastio, Karditsa and his mother is Russian of partial Greek heritage. His maternal grandfather, Sergei Salnikov, was a Russian footballer who played for Zenit Leningrad, Spartak Moscow and Dynamo Moscow, as well as the Soviet Union national team. Salnikov was also half Greek. Both of his parents are experienced tennis players, and his mother in particular was a world No. 1 junior who had a career-high professional ranking inside the top 200 and represented the Soviet Union in the Federation Cup. His parents had been working as tennis instructors at the Astir Palace resort hotel in Vouliagmeni at the time of his birth. They originally met at a WTA tournament in Athens where his mother was competing and his father was a line judge. Stefanos has three younger siblings: two brothers Petros and Pavlos, and a sister Elisavet who is the youngest. All of his siblings are also tennis players.

With their strong backgrounds in tennis, Tsitsipas's parents got their oldest son started on tennis at a very young age. Stefanos has said, "My first memory is to be three and to hit balls with my father in the gap between lessons. I remember watching games on TV, as a baby, I can not tell you who was playing, but I remember watching." He also participated in other sports as a kid, including football and swimming. His father said Stefanos made the decision to become a tennis player himself, recalling that his son "woke up in the middle of the night" after a tournament in France at age nine and told him "Dad, I have to tell you something: I want to become a tennis player, I like the competition, I like the challenge."

Tsitsipas began taking lessons at Tennis Club Glyfada near Athens at the age of six, and has continued to train there. His father has always served as his primary coach, and he formally studied tennis coaching at the University of Athens to help train his children. In 2015, Tsitsipas also began training at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, splitting time between France and Greece during this period.

Junior career

Tsitsipas is a former world No. 1 junior. He began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2013 at the age of 14. He did not play in any high-level Grade A tournaments until the Abierto Juvenil Mexicano in November 2014, but was able to make it all the way to the final of his second career Grade A event at the Orange Bowl a month later. Tsitsipas had entered the tournament ranked outside of the top 100 in the junior rankings. In 2015, Tsitsipas got his first opportunity to play in the junior Grand Slam tournaments. In these four events, a quarterfinal at the Australian Open was his best result. He did not win any singles finals that year, but he did have another runner-up finish at the Orange Bowl, this time losing to Miomir Kecmanović in a third set tiebreak. He finished the season as the No. 14 ranked junior in the world.

In 2016, Tsitsipas had a breakout year, reaching at least the quarterfinals of all eight tournaments that he played, including all four Grand Slams. He became the top-ranked junior in the world after winning his first Grade A title at the Trofeo Bonfiglio. Tsitsipas also won the European Junior Championships later in the year. Tsitsipas's biggest title of the season came in doubles, when he partnered with Estonian player Kenneth Raisma to win his only junior Grand Slam event at Wimbledon. He became the first male Greek to win a junior Grand Slam in the Open Era, and the second overall after Nicky Kalogeropoulos won both the French Open and Wimbledon in 1963. Besides his doubles triumph, Tsitsipas also had his two best finishes in the Grand Slam singles events that year, making the semifinals of both Wimbledon and the US Open. He ended the year as the No. 2 ranked junior in the world, behind only Kecmanović who had played several more events.

Professional career

2013–17: Top 100, ATP semifinal, top 10 victory

Tsitsipas began playing low-level ITF Futures events in Greece in 2013 shortly after turning 15, not long after he started competing on the junior tour. He qualified for his first event on the ATP Challenger Tour at the Burnie International in early 2015 while still 16 years old, but lost his only main draw match to Benjamin Mitchell. Tsitsipas won his first Futures title later that year and would go on to win a total of eleven such titles, five in singles and six in doubles, through the end of 2016. He also won his first Challenger match near the end of 2015 in Mohammedia in Morocco. Tsitsipas returned to Morocco a year later and reached his first two Challenger finals in back-to-back weeks at Mohammedia and Casablanca. This success in Africa helped him crack the top 200 later that October. Towards the end of that month, Tsitsipas was granted a qualifying wild card into the Swiss Indoors in Basel, his first ATP Tour appearance. He defeated Rajeev Ram in the opening round, but was unable to qualify after a loss to Robin Haase.

Tsitsipas played in his first ATP main draw at the 2017 Rotterdam Open, where he lost his debut match to the eventual champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He also made his Grand Slam debut later that year as a qualifier at the French Open, but lost to Ivo Karlović in his first match. After losing in qualifying at the US Open, Tsitsipas won his first Challenger title in Genova. Overall, he qualified for a tour-best eight events during the season, including Wimbledon and the Shanghai Masters. However, he did not win a tour-level match until the very end of the season when he defeated fellow Next Gen player Karen Khachanov in Shanghai. At the European Open in Belgium the following week, Tsitsipas reached his first ATP semifinal as a qualifier. During the event, he upset hometown favorite and world No. 10 David Goffin for his first career top 10 victory. With this run, Tsitsipas became the first Greek player to be ranked in the top 100 of the ATP rankings, accomplishing the feat at the age of 19 and surpassing Konstantinos Economidis as the highest ranked Greek player. He also reached a ranking high enough to be named an alternate for the Next Gen ATP Finals. Tsitsipas closed out the season with another Challenger final, this time in Brest.

2018: First Masters final, Next Gen champion

Tsitsipas started the year at the Qatar Open where he lost in the quarterfinals to world No. 5 Dominic Thiem, again as a qualifier. After losing in the opening round in his Australian Open debut, his best result in the rest of the early-year hard court season was another quarterfinal at the Dubai Tennis Championships. Tsitsipas's first breakthrough of the year came at the Barcelona Open during the clay court season, where he reached his first career ATP final without dropping a set. During the ATP 500 Series tournament, he defeated three top 20 players including No. 7 Thiem, before losing to world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in a lopsided match. With this result, Tsitsipas moved into the top 50 and became the second Greek to reach an ATP final after Nicky Kalogeropoulos in 1973. His performance also gained national attention in Greece, where tennis is not a widely popular sport. The following week at the Estoril Open, he reached another semifinal. He also picked up a third career top ten victory over No. 8 Kevin Anderson.