The past 18 months have been tough for Stefanos Tsitsipas, but the former world No 3 hopes his win over Taylor Fritz at the Shanghai Masters is a sign of things to come.
Back in March 2025, Tsitsipas was sitting at No 8 in the ATP Rankings but his poor form coupled with some injury setbacks resulted in a slip out of the top 30 by the end of the year.
But worse was still to come as he slumped to No 88 in June this year following an early exit from the French Open before slowly making his way back up again after winning the Swiss Open in July.
Tsitsipas returned to the top 50 after a decent run at last week’s Japan Open and he continued that form with his big victory against 11th seed Fritz in the third round in Shanghai.
The two-time Grand Slam finalist has climbed four places to No 39 in the Live ATP Rankings after winning 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 win in what is his third top-20 win since the start of August.
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“It is a statement. It’s a great win, against a player who has earned his stripes on the highest level of the ATP Tour for many years now,” the Greek said. “He’s been there consistently playing the finals, and playing the biggest, going deep in the Masters 1000s and Grand Slam tournaments.
“So, for me it is an important win that I was able to capture that. I knew there was a lot of difficulties that were presented to me, especially given the serve. It’s easy to lose your focus for a split second, and suddenly you are not in control of your serve, you are a break down.
“That was the thing with Taylor. Like, we both had to be careful with our serves. And, you know, there might be a window, one or two points, where you can might be able to do something, and it happened towards the very end.
“I’m extremely happy that I was able to really insert myself mentally into those few points and break the serve in that moment.”
Key to Tsitsipas’ return to form has been his backhand is it is more reliable after a troubling period.
“It feels good, yes. I do feel confident hitting my backhands, hitting my forehands. I also like try and add variation to my game. It’s not all about strength and how hard you hit,” the 28-year-old stated.
“I feel like it’s important to mix up play and try to use a variation of play opening up the court, you know, using a little bit of top spin, a little bit of flat.
“So, I try and work on all of my curves inside the tennis court during rallies, and try and work around those to try and improve as much as I can. I just want to make it as annoying as possible.”
