Stefanos Tsitsipas got beaten by Carlos Alcaraz in the Roland Garros (French Open) quarter-finals and after the match, he blamed his naps for the loss.
Alcaraz was playing one of his best matches in a long time against Tsitsipas who was left pretty powerless from the start. The best stretch for the Greek happened in the final set when Alcaraz dropped his focus a little bit, something he admitted to after the match. When it comes to Tsitsipas, he had his own take on why the match went as badly for him as it did. He blamed it on his habit of having naps before matches as this one demonstrated to him that it was not working.
No naps
Tsitsipas had a habit of taking naps before his matches but after this latest disappointment, he won't be doing that in the future:
“One thing that I’m going to try to avoid in the future is have
melatonin pills and naps before matches because it clearly doesn’t seem
to be working. I don’t think he played any crazy tennis. I allowed it to happen. I
don’t think he played his best match. He played great. I mean, I don’t
think he played exceptional, but he played great. He played tennis with few errors and that was enough to beat me.”
Schedule issues
To help regulate his sleep, Tsitsipas also used melatonin pills, something he now regrets:
“I had some late-night sessions. Not super late, but late enough for me to kind of have my sleep schedule ruined, in a way. I wondered myself why I did not feel the adrenalin and stress. I wondered in my first service game. I was more calm than usual. I
tried to nap before the game. About 20 minutes which I usually do not
do, actually never done. My start was highly likely down to this.”