Stefanos Tsitsipas, the endless rebirth of tennis on clay, and the beauty of a swept court

New York Times

08-04-2025

Few players indulge in the metaphors of clay-court tennis like Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The crushed red brick is both a field of play and a canvas. With every set, and every match, that canvas is swept clean, offering an opportunity to paint a new picture or to tell a new story.
'A cleansing of the soul,' the Greek said of the process, a few years back at the French Open in Paris. When he walks onto a clean red clay court, the footing of his youth, Tsitsipas feels a sense of peace. An opportunity for rebirth.
Advertisement
He feels it in this part of the year more than any other, with the arrival of the European clay swing and with it the Monte Carlo Masters, the tournament where Tsitsipas so often thrives. More importantly, he is certain that he has put all the pieces into place for another push toward the top of the sport that he looked set to rule, before its contemporary legends stayed his rise and its newest champions overtook him.
New racket. New coach. New attitude.
After more than two years of results that disappointed him and turmoil within his team, he feels a new hope. It accompanies him to Monaco, for a tournament that Tsitsipas has won three of the past four years and where he will likely need a decent result to solidify the spot he has regained in the top 10 of the ATP rankings.
'I feel more joy being on the court, playing,' Tsitsipas said in an interview in California last month.
'It just feels good playing regardless of what's gonna happen. It feels good trying to find a solution, trying to fight on the court, being out there, in my playground, the one that I go out and play in.'
This was days after he had won his first tournament since last year's Monte Carlo Masters, by capturing the Dubai Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates. Tsitsipas mostly flowed to that title, but also found resilience when he needed it, outlasting Matteo Berrettini of Italy and Karen Khachanov of Russia in tight three-set matches.
This was the way it was always supposed to be for the Greek, 26, who burst on the scene seven years ago. The shoulder-length, dirty-blond hair held down with a headband. The ball flying off his strings. The whip of a one-handed backhand complementing two lightning bolts, in his serve and his forehand. If Greek mythology had included a tennis player, they probably would have looked something like Tsitsipas.
Advertisement
The sport looked there for his taking. But he never quite got there, suffering painful losses to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and especially Novak Djokovic like so many of his contemporaries, despite beating them in some of his best moments. And just when those foes receded and it looked as if respite was coming, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz appeared to steal the future away.
Through it all, Apostolos, his father, coached him. There was turmoil there too, with ugly exchanges between the Tsitsipases during matches and allegations of illegal coaching. On several occasions, Tsitsipas tried to bring in another coach, most notably Mark Philippoussis, the Australian ex-pro and a Wimbledon and U.S. Open finalist. Inevitably, Apostolos would return, though he had never really gone away.
Then, last summer in Montreal, their professional relationship decisively fractured. After a surprise defeat to Japan's Kei Nishikori, then the world No. 576, Tsitipas said he was 'disappointed' in his father's work.
'I need and I deserve a coach that listens to me and hears my feedback as a player. My father hasn't been very smart or very good at handling those situations,' he said.
Rock bottom arrived a few weeks later, with a first-round loss to Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia at the U.S. Open. Tsitsipas said that day that he barely felt the urgency to fight, and he needed to figure out why.
Behind the scenes, Dimitris Chatzinikolaou, Greece's Davis Cup coach who has known Tsitsipas since he was a child, was trying to rebuild his support team. It would eventually include a physiotherapist from Patrick Mouratoglou's academy, where Tsitsipas often trained during his youth. One of his cousins, Konstantinos, would serve as his fitness trainer.
'We started from zero,' Chatzinikolaou said during a recent interview.
Advertisement
Chatzinikolaou's theory is that Tsitsipas needs complete trust in the people around him to feel confident and comfortable on the court. But before that could arrive, he had to get healthy. There was lingering soreness in his back and in his shoulders. Only when that was fixed could they start to work on his mentality. For Chatzinikolaou, the will to fight and the belief in one's game isn't something to be switched on when a tournament rolls around.
'Stefanos was always a gladiator, but I think somewhere he lost that,' Chatzinikolaou said.
'To bring this mentality, to fight every month, to fight for every point, this comes from the daily training, the daily communication.'
In California, Tsitsipas said that he began to buy into his new program sometime around October last year. He began to feel the joy on the court again, but big wins remained elusive. At the ATP Tour Finals in Turin, Italy, he was an alternate — a body to fill in if anyone in the top eight had to drop out. They didn't. This year's Australian Open brought not joy, but instead more frustration, in the shape of a first-round loss to Alex Michelsen, the unseeded 20-year-old American.
Tsitsipas realized there was one more radical step he could take: A new racket. Chatzinikolaou said that despite all they had been through, switching equipment was probably the most important — and difficult — change that Tsitsipas could make.
'It's a courageous change, and that courage comes with rewards,' he said.
For several years, even as he could feel the balls becoming less lively — something that many players have complained about — Tsitsipas had refused to try another racket that would provide more power without sacrificing control. For contractual reasons, Tsitsipas can't say much about what his new racket gives him that his old Wilson Blade did not. More pointedly, he can't say which racket it actually is. The profile — and an uncovered logo on the stringing machine in Dubai — suggests a Babolat Pure Aero 98 model, which Alcaraz also wields.
Advertisement
'I haven't switched in more than 10 years, and I feel like that's also closed-minded from my side,' Tsitsipas said of his mindset regarding his equipment.
'I just had to discover and kind of get something new out there because I felt like there were a lot of things I was missing, in terms of how I can extract potential out of my game.'
There have been other tweaks, too. Tsitsipas has been trying to make his backhand less vulnerable, especially on his return. Chatzinikolaou has him trying to take the ball a little earlier, which allows him to be more aggressive with the shot: something he can do with the new racket.
'I'm pretty sure the entire tour was talking about my returns being an issue, and it's something that I won't deny myself,' he said. 'It was definitely not working.'
He is also tossing the ball a little further forward on his serve, allowing his body to move into the shot more. Despite the short-term success in Dubai, it's all something of a work in progress. Tsitsipas is hoping that it can all come together on his favorite courts, first in Monte Carlo and then through the rest of the clay season, when he gets those daily reminders of the possibility of rebirth.
He knows there are no guarantees. Maybe he wins a fourth Monte Carlo title. Maybe there is more pain ahead.
'There will never be promises, regardless if you're the best player in the world or not,' he said.
'But there's joy in knowing that I'm exactly where I want to be, how I want to be. It's a definition of freedom to me.'
(Photos: Daniel Cole / Associated Press)