Stefanos Tsitsipas and Sascha Zverev are poised to have a rather spicy rivalry in the years to come.
Zverev criticizing Tsitsipas
Zverev used to be often harsh with Stefanos Tsitsipas in his comments. After the Greek defeated him in Toronto last year, he refused to acknowledge that Stefanos played well and that the overall match was pathetic.
In November last year, the German criticized Tsitsipas and Tiafoe for the excessive use of towels. That also brought to a big controversy in their recent match when Zverev received an unfair time violation for being kind for waiting Stefanos to take position after he used the towel.
Before their recent clash in Spain, when the journalists asked Sascha about Tsitsipas he hinted that the Greek was high in the rankings especially because he was playing a lot of tournaments (see article).
Why Zverev was impressed by Stefanos
After all this controversy, it’s nice to notice that in the press conference following his defeat at the hands of Stefanos in Madrid, the German had no problems in revealing why Stefanos impressed him to say
“[Tsitsipas] is playing very good. He’s obviously improved a lot. His serve is very, very good, I was surprised today. And the second shot he hits it unbelievably aggressive so it was not easy.
I mean, I actually thought I played really well the first two sets. I had one bad game in two sets and that was at 5-All when he broke me and I kind of broke myself there. So, this was the only thing. Going into the third set, if I break earlier than 1-1, maybe it would be different.”
Zverev is already training in Rome where he will start seeded no.4.
Currently, the head to head between Stefanos and Sascha is 2-1 for the Greek.
