“I added fuel to the fire for Rublev to win”: Tsitsipas, the funny mea culpa

“What I said in that press conference against Rublev was very unfair and not correct“, began the interested party. Before explaining that his remarks were in fact… calculated, with a very specific objective.I wanted him to be angry as his next match approached, to try to play even better. I’m not going to give the reasons because I think it’s pretty obvious, given the situation I would have been in if I had been in the semi-finals against this opponent.“, he let go.

Tsitsipas, who could have finished the season number 1 in the world in the event of a perfect course in Turin, finally slipped to 4th place. However, the Greek was finally overtaken on the podium by Casper Ruud whom he would have found in the semi-finals if he had succeeded in beating Andrey Rublev. Aware of having wasted a good chance, he nevertheless knew that the Russian would have allowed him to finish 3rd in the standings, if he beat the Norwegian.

A very strange calculation and ultimately not paying off. “I really wanted Andrey to win his next match, and my approach was to add a little bit of fuel to the fire, to make him even hungrier, to make him even more focused. I think it was not well inspired, because we had the impression that he could not play at the desired level. I saw the match and I don’t think it performed as well as I would have expected. If he had won this match, it would have allowed me to finish in the Top 3. I played a little with this context to give myself as many chances as possible. But of course the best way to do that would have been to win my game.”

By speaking his words, Tsitsipas potentially has another objective: to show that he would not in fact have lost his temper, that his emotions would not have taken over. A way of ensuring in short that mentally, he had not twisted that much. There remains the perceptible malaise and the desire to make amends.

“Andrey is a great player, with a great arsenal at his disposal which he uses extremely well on the court on the court. He can hit the ball really hard. He is a kind of Marat Safin of the new generation. I don’t think he has a limited game. He has been able to compete with the best for several years. He is one of the most disciplined players on the circuit, he is very professional. Not to spoil anything, he is very funny, I like to share moments with him. He’s very nice and likes to make fun of himself.“, he said, heaping praise on his colleague.

Before showing perhaps more sincerity. “So do I regret what I said? Yes I regret it. I was extremely hurt not to have been able to go to the end in this Masters. I found an outlet for all that frustration, but it wasn’t the right way to do it, even though I was doing it with a purpose. If I saw him, I would obviously apologize because that’s really not what I think of him in reality.”