Stefanos
Tsitsipas has named
Carlos Alcaraz as his 'biggest rival' on tour, despite
statistics suggesting otherwise. The Greek player is competing in the
Swiss Open Gstaad , where he entered as the top seed and is preparing for the semi-finals
against the 6th seed
Matteo Berrettini.
With just
six encounters between them, ‘Carlitos’ doesn’t even rank among the top 15
players with the most matches against Tsitsipas in ATP-level tournaments, and
the Spaniard has a dominant head-to-head record.
Alcaraz dominates Tsitsipas in Head-to-Head
The
25-year-old Greek did not have a successful grass-court season, with only two
wins and two losses, including an early exit in the second round of Wimbledon.
Tsitsipas's inconsistent year has been costly, recently dropping out of the top
10 in a closely contested ranking battle.
World No.
12 Tsitsipas was asked at the tournament about his biggest career rival and
gave a curious response: "Hi Stefanos, who's your biggest rival on
tour?" he was asked in a press conference. "I'd probably say...
Carlos Alcaraz,"
Stefanos Tsitsipas responded.
Tsitsipas’s
answer is somewhat surprising, considering Alcaraz has a dominant 6-0
head-to-head record against him. The Spaniard leads in sets won by a resounding
15-3. Additionally, they are not even from the same generation, making
Tsitsipas’s response more intriguing.
![tsitsipasrg](https://r.testifier.nl/Acbs8526SDKI/resizing_type:fit/width:1280/plain/https://s3-newsifier.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/tennisuptodate.com/images/2024-06/tsitsipasrg-66600ec1106dc.jpg@webp)
Stefanos Tsitsipas at 2024 French Open.
Currently,
the player Tsitsipas has faced the most is his contemporary
Alexander Zverev.
They have met 15 times, with Tsitsipas leading the rivalry 10-5. The Greek also
won their only Grand Slam encounter in the 2021 French Open semi-finals after
five sets.
Tsitsipas
has faced
Daniil Medvedev 13 times since 2018, with the Russian leading 9-4.
Medvedev won the first five matches, but since the 2019 ATP Finals, they have
split the last eight matches evenly. Matches against Medvedev have often been
tense both on and off the court.
Another
significant rivalry for Tsitsipas is against
Alex De Minaur, with whom he has played
12 matches. Tsitsipas leads this head-to-head 11-1 in matches since 2018. The
only triumph for De Minaur was at quarterfinals in the 2024 Mexican Open Currently,
there are 15 players with more head-to-head encounters against Tsitsipas,
including Novak Djokovic, Andrey Rublev, Dominic Thiem, Rafael Nadal, and
Jannik Sinner, among others.
Here you can find the reaction of some fans on social media: