Former grand slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas says he has sacked his father Apostolos Tsitsipas as his coach.
Tsitsipas, a runner-up at the French Open and Australian Open and a former world No 3, confirmed the split ahead of Wimbledon and said his decision was final.
The Greek star, who has fallen to 87th in the world after a difficult couple of years of form, had previously parted ways with his father only to rehire him later.
“It will take him some time to accept it, as it did the last time we split,” Tsitsipas, 27, said ahead of Wimbledon, as reported by Clay.
“Back then I left a small window open. Now I believe he has a great deal to offer others . But to me, I think he’s already given everything he possibly could.
“The older I get, the harder I find it to maintain a stable relationship with my father in a coaching context. I feel we’ve reached a point where I’m looking for something completely different.”
Tsitsipas won his first-round match against France’s Hugo Gaston on Monday, winning 6-1 6-4 6-2, and said he wanted to prove a point.
“Let me start by saying that I'm missing the way I have been playing the last couple of years,” Tsitsipas said. “And today while I was on the court, I was thinking of the great fights that I have had previously at Wimbledon, playing some years back.
“Regardless of the result, I always felt like I was coming into this tournament with a lot of determination, with a lot of love for the grass, and always played my best that I knew at the time.
|So today's match was a little bit of a throwback mentally of how I started this journey playing at Wimbledon, playing at juniors, and trying to go far. I produced some really good tennis.
“I was trying to revisit some of my qualities and some of the ways I have been thinking and doing certain things from the past, and tried to apply those in a structural, well-mannered way in today's match. I'm just going to continue doing that and see where that brings me.”
Tsitsipas was hailed as a future star and one of the next “Big Three” along with Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev tipped to take over from Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
He reached the 2019 French Open final, as well as the 2023 Australian Open final, and climbed to as high as No 3 in the world.
Further success has eluded him, however, and Tsitsipas failed to progress further than the second round of a grand slam last season while falling out of the world’s top 50.
“Over this last stretch, I felt that having my father by my side gave me a sense of comfort, but that wasn’t the solution I needed to take the next steps and do something different in my career,” he said.
“Of course I love him very much and want the best for him, but right now I’m thinking about myself and what is best for me.”
Tsitsipas had a brief coaching spell with former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic last year but it only lasted two months.
Ivanisevic was highly critical of Tsitsipas after the split, and said: “I've talked to him a lot of times. If he solves some things outside of tennis, then he'll return to where he belongs.”
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