In the world of tennis Grand Slams are regarded as the most prestigious events but for Stefanos Tsitsipas it is the end-of-year Tour Finals that mean the most to him.
This season is the fifth in a row that the world No.6 has qualified for the event which features the eight highest-ranked players in men’s tennis. Tsitsipas won the Tour Finals back in 2019 in what remains the biggest title of his career so far. Since then, he has failed to progress beyond the knockout stages and last year only won one out of three matches played. Overall, he has a win-loss record of 6-6.
“I would consider it probably a bigger thing than a Slam, honestly,” he said of the tournament during an interview with atptour.com. “It has big prestige and it’s a very valuable asset if you’re able to conquer and win it.”
The 25-year-old has experienced a rollercoaster on the Tour during 2023. In January he reached the final of the Australian Open before losing to world No.1 Novak Djokovic. A couple months later he was also runner-up at the Barcelona Open before winning his first title of the year in August at the Los Cabos Open.
Tsitsipas then struggled with his consistency shortly after Los Cabos and failed to win back-to-back matches at five consecutive tournaments. However, his form has once again improved in recent weeks with the Greek reaching the semi-finals of his last three played. During his resurgence, he decided to reappoint his father as his principal coach after briefly working with Mark Philippoussis for a second time during the summer.
“It’s important that I’m able to stabilise myself and be able to consistently go on deep runs in tournaments,” he explained. “I might not win all of them, but for me it’s important to just be able to repetitively make semis, finals or even win on a consistent basis. So I’m keeping a positive outlook on all of this, and I’m hoping to continue this kind of streak.”
Whilst he is on the up again, Tsitsipas has struggled against the big names in recent months. Since the start of this year, he has won only one out of seven matches against top 10 players. That was against Alexander Zverev at the Paris Masters last week. Overall, his win-loss record for the season so far stands at 51-22.
The draw for this year’s ATP Finals will take place on Thursday with the first set of group matches taking place on Sunday in Turin.
