Stefanos Tsitsipas is not the player who he was 12 months ago at the French Open, according to the coach of Novak Djokovic.
The world No.4 crashed out of the tournament in four sets on Monday after suffering a surprise loss to Holger Rune. A 19-year-old Dane who is playing in the main draw for the first time in his career. Throughout the fourth round encounter, Tsitsipas struggled to find rhythm in his shot-making and produced a series of costly unforced errors. Something that played into the hands of his inspired opponent.
Following his defeat the 23-year-old hinted that part of his problem might have been down to the equipment he was using. However, when asked at his press conference to clarify exactly what he meant, he declined to give an answer.
“It’s just that I had a few troubles in practice. Again, back to frustration, back to not understanding certain things and certain patterns that I was trying to impose,” he said.
“You do have this in the back of your head, having kind of changed a little bit of that equipment, playing with something that has helped you a lot last year get to a pretty good result, finals for the first time, it kind of stays back in your head that maybe I shouldn’t have had done that.”
There could also be another possible reason for the lacklustre run in the eyes of Djokovic’s mentor Goran Ivanisevic. The Croat believes the tennis star is suffering from the mental side effects of just missing out on his maiden Grand Slam title 12 months ago in Roland Garros. On that occasion he boasted a two-set lead over Djokovic before losing in five. Since then, he has failed to reach the quarter-final stage of a major in three out of four attempts.
“I have seen him very nervous since the beginning of this tournament. It may be strange, but that match last year against Nole set him back,” said Ivanisevic.
“I watched him, he’s very nervous, he argues a lot with his mom and dad. It’s not the same Tsitsipas from last year who was more focused, he knew what he was doing and he knew how to play.”
Ivanisevic can relate to Tsitsipas’ woes after finding himself in a similar situation during his career. Three times he settled for runner-up at Wimbledon, losing two of those in five sets to Andre Agassi in 1992 and Pete Sampras in 1998. It wasn’t until three years later when he won his first and only major title at The All England Club.
“I love him very much as a tennis player and I want him to make a comeback as soon as possible. I think he can do it,” he said of Tsitsipas.
Tsitsipas has vowed to play ‘as many grass court tournaments as possible’ ahead of Wimbledon, where he has lost in the first round three out of four times.
