Stefanos Tsitsipas exits US Open: ‘I’m nothing compared to the player I was before’
NEW YORK — Inside a small interview room Tuesday at the U.S. Open, with only four reporters in attendance, Stefanos Tsitsipas essentially announced that he’s at a crisis point in his tennis career.
Having just lost to Thanasi Kokkinakis in four sets, and completing a Grand Slam season in which he failed to make a semifinal for the first time since 2018, the 26-year-old Greek acknowledged that he’s been suffering from a form of burnout and attributed his lackluster results for most of this year to lacking the hunger he had when he climbed into the world’s top four in 2021.
“I’m nothing compared to the player I was before,” Tsitsipas said after his second first-round exit from the U.S. Open in the past three years. “I remember myself playing when I was younger, playing with adrenaline on the court, feeling like my life depends on the match. And these things, I feel like they have faded off, and let’s say my level of consistency hasn’t been as big.
“I remember my concentration used to be at its highest, at its peak, back then, and that’s something that I felt has dropped a little bit. I know it sounds strange, but I feel like I need the hunger to reproduce the hunger I had back then. And I’m not a person that feels alright or settles for normal stuff. Like, I really want to regenerate it and bring it back because it brought a lot of joy to my tennis when I was able to feel that way on the court. I really don’t know why it has dropped the last couple of months. I would even consider it like one to two years I’ve been feeling that way. I guess I was just able to hide it a bit better and put it to the side a bit more.”
