Stefanos Tsitsipas has been extremely consistent with his tennis during his matches, but he started to have the habit of crumbling even when he was in firm control of his matches during the last months. For this reason, Tsitsipas decided to intensify his sessions with his psychologist Costas Pergantis that has been following him for years.
Stefanos’ episodes
The Greek sensation had to endure many tough losses when he was in complete command of the situation. He lost an impossible match at the last US Open against Borna Coric when he was winning 6 4-6 6-4 5-1. Later, he lost the final in Hamburg against Andrey Rublev when he was leading 5-3 in the final set before dropping 4 consecutive games. This year in Acapulco, he had the solid opportunity to lead Sascha Zverev 5-1 in the opener when he was in total control of the final before falling in straight sets. At the Miami Open, he lost to Hubert Hurkacz after he was leading extremely comfortably 6-2 2-0.
Clearly, nothing was missing in Stefanos’ tennis, but it was pretty obvious that he was struggling from a psychological point of view. For this reason, he asked Costas to help him and the result was spectacular.
The solution
During a recent interview with Greek outlet SDNA, Costas explained what he did to help Stefanos.
in particular, he started to work with Stefanos soon after Miami,
“We started working harder, especially after the defeat in Miami, where he really had to win the game but lost it. And the easy comment was that he couldn’t. The point is that this athlete, who is at the top of the world, has a different pressure than we imagine. Stefanos, from a young age, managed the pressure and the fire of the fight very well.
Lately, though, he seemed unable to do so. In Miami, in particular. So we had to get a job right away. We did it when he returned to Europe and before the Monte Carlo tournament.”Most of their attention was focused on helping Stefanos to manage his huge energy. Costas even compared Tsitsipas to an active volcano that his to manage its power:
“We decompressed every night first and continued building and leaning on the energy that this kid has, which is huge. I would describe it as an active volcano when it can be well. Even a volcano is not enough, everything must be controlled. You can not just be explosive and break everything, you have to manage this energy. So that’s what we did every night. And we did it in the most natural way, which is breathing. I call it grounding.”
That worked particularly well.
Stefanos Tsitsipas in 2021
Currently, during this year Tsitsipas has a composed 22-5 record. This year, The Greek lifted the trophy in Monte-Carlo. The Greek reached the final in Acapulco.