At the European Open in Antwerp earlier this month, Stefanos Tstisipas and his brother Petros Tsitsipas claimed their first-ever doubles title. Despite playing together for a while, the two have only recently experienced success. There was a unique individual behind this success, and that was Tsitsipas’ girlfriend, Paula Badosa.
The 25-year-old is in Paris in order to compete in the Paris Masters. He gave his girlfriend Badosa credit for his doubles victory in an interview conducted before the tournament. The two brothers practiced together under the guidance of the latter.
He discussed it in the interview and said: “I invited Paula to the court because there’s one little story that not many people know. Paula was actually our first doubles coach, me and Petros. She took over in the US Open after I got eliminated in singles, left with no coach and Paula stepped in and took the role of the doubles coach.”
Tsitsipas added: “So she was helping both Petros and me to perfect our doubles strategy and team spirit. She is the first person who dedicated 4 hours a day to working with us and making sure we were in our best possible shape, and when I saw her in the stands, I said, ‘You have to come in because you made this happen.”
Stefanos Tsitsipas in 2023
Now ranked no.6, Tsitsipas played his last match on the 28th of October when he surrendered to world no.3 Daniil Medvedev 6-4 7-6(6)
in the semifinal in Vienna (draw).Currently, during this year Stefanos has managed to achieve a composed 48-21 record. The Greek has won 1 title in Los Cabos. Stefanos got to the final at the Australian Open and Barcelona.
Paula Badosa in 2023
Ranked no.67, Badosa played her last match on the 7th of July when she had to retire when playing against world no.39 Marta Kostyuk in the 2nd round and the scoreline was 6-2 1-0 .
This season Paula owns a 18-9 match record. Paula Badosa’s most significant accomplishment of the present season was reaching the semifinal in Adelaide.
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa |
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