HJust eight months ago, coinciding with the end of the last Roland Garros, Stefanos Tsitsipas was seen in his country with the basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The tennis player met his idol thanks to the friendship that unites him with the peer Emmanuel Karalis. Today Tsitsipas is the best known and most followed sportsman in Greece thanks to the Roland Garros final.
His matches are followed by millions of compatriots. The expectation created by his results this season – number one in the Race, with more games won in total (39) and on earth (32) – has isolated him in his world since his arrival in Paris. He has always tried to train away from the camera spotlights and even yesterday scheduled a session behind closed doors on track 16 of the Bois de Boulogne. Very active in social networks, he has stopped intervening since his landing in Paris.
Tsitsipas plays for history in the Philippe Chatrier. And it is that he seeks to be the champion number 56 of a great within the Open Era and the one who does 151 since the creation of these tournaments.
A victory will give him a double prize: he will lift the Musketeers Cup and enter the podium for the first time to the detriment of Rafael Nadal. Stefanos is no longer known on the circuit as the young man who nearly drowned in the waters of Crete in 2015.
He is the champion of seven events, two of them this season have been in the brick dust of Monte Carlo and Lyon. With victories against all the members of the Big Three he can end the dominance of Djokovic and Nadal in the majors. Of the last 11, the Serbian (6) and the Balearic (4) have shared 10.
One of the best kept secrets of the new Stefanos is the daily meditation exercises and the talks with the psychologist. “Breathing training has become part of my routines. It has allowed me to get to know myself a little more. It helps me feel better both physically and mentally,” he says. At 22 he would be the youngest champion since Nadal in the 2008 edition.
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