Stefanos Tsitsipas - Thought Leader

Part old world, part post-millennial, Stefanos Tsitsipas is trying to scale the heights of the game, and see all the sights along the way

- Stephen Tignor

“My life is like a speeding bullet that just hasn’t hit the target yet,” Stefanos Tsitsipas wrote on Twitter this spring. Accompanying his words was a photo of the 20-year-old Greek staring soulfully into the camera while taking a water break during practice.

The statement and the picture were pure Tsitsipas: sincere, self-dramatizing, restlessly unsatisfied— and expressed on social media.

In a word: Youthful.

Of all the players who make up tennis’ up-and-coming generation, Tsitsipas most fully embodies and embraces the often-thrilling, sometimes-painful process of growing up, both as a player and a person. More specifically, the Athens native embodies a generation of young male players who are attempting, so far without much success, to fill the very big shoes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal.

As with everyone else in his cohort, life these days for Tsitsipas can feel like one long learning experience. Or, to use his words, it can feel like a speeding bullet that finds its target some weeks, but still flies well wide of the mark during others.

In January, Tsitsipas hit the bullseye when he upset Federer in the fourth round of the Australian Open. “Changing of the guard!” headlines around the world screamed. Tsitsipas was praised not just for defeating Federer, but for doing it with an updated version of The Maestro’s game.

At that moment it seemed as if tennis, after two decades of searching, had finally found an heir to Federer’s artfully-appointed throne. Tsitsipas had the same elegantly lethal one-handed backhand; the same powerful, point-ending forehand; and the same instincts for how to deploy his many weapons to maximum effect.