I first mentioned a formidable young Greek tennis player back in 2015. His name was Stefanos Tsitsipas and a few months later in 2016 he became the ITF world junior number 1, showing his already huge potential. That same year Stefanos reached 2 Grand Slam QFs and 2 SFs in the junior Slams losing only to Shapovalov x 2, De Minaur and Auger-Aliasime all of who are set to have big careers in tennis themselves.
Tsitsipas slowly started playing ATP Challengers and gaining experience finishing 2016 just outside the ATP top 200. Stefanos started playing more regularly in 2017 away from the juniors and later in the year broke into the ATP top 100, reaching the ATP Antwerp semi finals by defeating David Goffin in the QFs, a huge victory for him.
The boy from Athens has had a brilliant 2018, especially since the clay court season started. He has pushed on with ease up the ATP rankings. Tsitsipas big breakthrough was at the Barcelona ATP 500 event where he caused a shock upset against Dominic Thiem before losing the final 2-6 1-6 to clay court king Rafa Nadal. People were suddenly taking a lot more notice of the 19 year old.
Stefanos won his first Grand Slam match at the French Open in May before losing in 4 sets to Thiem who himself went on to reach the Roland Garros final. Tsitsipas big Grand Slam breakthrough happened only a few weeks later when he reached the 4th round of Wimbledon with some big battle fighting displays before going on to lose to eventual semi finalist John Isner only by tie breaks.
A semi final spot last week at ATP Washington meant the Greek players ranking zoomed into the ATP top 30. This week he has again played brilliantly to knock Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic out of the Toronto Masters 63 67 63, winning a phenomenal 84% of first serves. His ranking is now provisionally up to ATP 23rd and a quarter final win on Friday would push him into the top 20 in Mondays rankings for the first time in his career.
The Greek player turns 20 on the 12th of August the day of the Toronto Masters final..... can he give himself the biggest birthday present? The crowds love him, the media loves him so far and social media adores him. Stefanos often chats with fans, sharing pictures of his success and also sharing quotes/words of wisdom about his tennis career and performances in a very reflective way. You cannot help but read his tweets and believe in every word!
Watch this space, it's going to be filled with Stefanos Tsitsipas success I am sure.
Night!
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