Stefanos Tsitsipas is the highest-rated Greek player to date. He was introduced to the sport at a very young age and went on to make a name for himself on the international front.
Tsitsipas was born on August 12, 1998 in Greece‘s national capital Athens. The 23-year-old got his first coaching lesson in Tennis at a local club at the age of six.
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He was born into a family of sports, where both his Greek father Apostolos Tsitsipas, and Russian mother Julia Apostoli are experienced, tennis players. His siblings are also professional tennis players.
“My first memory is to be three and to hit balls with my father in the gap between lessons. I remember watching games on TV, as a baby, I can not tell you who was playing, but I remember watching,” Stefanos says.
Stefanos was an athletic child growing up. He would participate in sports like football and swimming, alongside tennis. His father recalls a young Stefanos “woke up in the middle of the night” aged nine, after a tournament in France and told him “Dad, I have to tell you something: I want to become a tennis player, I like the competition, I like the challenge.”
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He currently holds a career-high position of fifth in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in the singles category. He is also the youngest Greek player to break into the Top 10 ranks of the ATP.
One of the most significant and celebrated achievements of Tsitsipas includes the 2019 victory in the ATP Finals against Austria’s Dominic Thiem and the recent Monte Carlo Masters victory in 2021, where he defeated Russia’s Andrey Rublev.
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In July 2022, in a match against Nick Kyrgios, Stefanos was booed by the Wimbledon Centre Court audience. As he got off to a good start, his begrudged opponent got into several rows with the line judges. He attempted to exempt himself out of the situation.