Stefanos Tsitsipas admits tennis future is unclear as he struggles with anxiety and fitness issues

Greek three-time Grand Slam finalist saw his Wimbledon campaign end in the first round due to an ongoing back problem

Stefanos Tsitsipas is a two-time Grand Slam finalist, but hasn’t made it past the second round in any of his last five majors. Reuters

On the eve of Wimbledon, Stefanos Tsitsipas sat in a small interview room with a few journalists and opened up about his struggles with anxiety.

The Greek former top-three player sounded excited about hiring former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic as his coach, and believes the Croatian legend can help him fix various technical issues with his game.

Tsitsipas added though that he was acutely aware that was not going to be enough.

EditorialWhat Ons Jabeur's 'disconnect' from tennis will mean for Arab sport

Read More

The 26-year-old admitted he had work to do in order to “recalibrate my mental state” and that it was on him to find solutions for his current psychological woes.

“The last couple of years, especially the last two years, I feel like I have been very stressed and anxious and I only realised that now that all of this is really adding to me and it just doesn't feel like me when I'm out on the court,” Tsitsipas revealed on Saturday.

“So I just need to manage the stress better. It's something that will pop up, something that might happen again, but I need to manage those stressful moments.

“I need to manage moments of uncertainty and figure it out on my own. I don't want to have external stuff that are causing those types of things.

“So I need to soulfully be focused on my own individuality, my own self, and let anything outside not allow any of this to distract me.”

Tsitsipas did not explicitly say what those external pressures or distractions may be, but his issues with his father, Apostolos, have been well-documented during the years he served as his coach.

Tsitsipas has also previously complained that he felt his parents were “too involved” in his life and he has felt the responsibility of taking care of his whole family from a young age – even making it a mission to play doubles with one of his brothers, Petros, in order to help him get into the top 100.

Tsitsipas ended his coaching partnership with Apostolos on more than one occasion, most recently last August, in an effort to focus on their father-son relationship.

He has had mostly lacklustre results since, barring a surprise run to the Dubai title in February, in what was his first tournament using a new racquet.

When asked if he could pinpoint the source of his anxiety, Tsitsipas said: “Well, my life is … I feel like not just my life, I feel like most players' life is chaotic, having to travel from place to place and then switching time zones and going from one place to the other.

“Doing this for so many years, I think it's quite normal that at some point you're going to reach a place of burnout or a place where you feel like you've had enough.

“But literally, you can't do anything about that because the nature of the sport itself is to repeatedly go one tournament after the other.

“I'm a player that has been playing the most amount of tournaments, the most amount of matches, I think. For three or four years, I was the player on the tour that had the most amount of wins in a single season.

“And there comes a moment, me and Goran spoke about it, there comes a moment where you pay the price and you can't have everything in life.

“Of course, it was great at the time. But internally, you're not aligned and you're not in peace with yourself.

“You're always chasing, you're always going after things. And sometimes when you end up also being surrounded by people that demand too much from you and you feel like you're responsible for not just yourself but for other people too … it creates this inner pressure, this inner anxiety that keeps increasing week after week. So it doesn't really help you with the tennis either.

“You feel like you're battling two worlds at the same time.”

Two days later, Tsitsipas retired from his Wimbledon opening round against French qualifier Valentin Royer with a lower-back injury that has been bothering him on and off since the end of 2023.

The Greek is a two-time Grand Slam finalist, but hasn’t made it past the second round in any of his last five majors and is currently down to No 26 in the world rankings.

After this latest setback on Monday, Tsitsipas once again shared some worrying thoughts with the media. This time about his physical state.

“I'm battling many wars these days. It's really painful to see myself in a situation like this,” said Tsitsipas.

“One thing that I absolutely hate doing is retiring or stopping a match, but I've never pictured myself being in a situation like this multiple times since the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin a couple of years back.

“Since that time, I've been very fragile with my body, and I've been battling a war of feeling healthy and feeling comfortable going to the extremes, which has been a difficult battle. So I really don't know.

“I feel completely … I feel like I'm left without answers.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas receives treatment on his back problem that saw him to retire from his Wimbledon first-round match against French qualifier Valentin Royer. AP

Tsitsipas explained that the problem is in the lower left side of his back and it limits his ability to rotate his body while playing.

“It's probably the most difficult situation that I've ever been faced with, because it's an ongoing issue that doesn't seem to be disappearing or fading off as much,” he added.

“Myself, as a person, I have a limit at some point, so I'll definitely have to have my final answer on whether I want to do stuff or not in the next couple of months.

“This is going to be hard, but if I see it going in that trajectory, there is no point at competing. If I'm not healthy, and I've talked about health so many times, if health is not there, then your whole tennis life becomes miserable.”

In the Greek portion of his press conference, Tsitsipas was clearer about his future in the sport, saying he’ll give it one more year before making a final decision.

“If this develops into something that doesn't let me finish matches, I get my answer there. I mean I won't play tennis again for good,” he told SDNA.