Stefanos Tsitsipas: Greek Tennis Star's Rise, Slump and 2026 Comeback

Few players of his generation reached the top of men’s tennis as quickly as Stefanos Tsitsipas, and few have had to work as hard to climb back. The Greek player was world No. 3 at 23, won the ATP Finals at 21 and played in two Grand Slam finals. Then injuries and a run of poor results pushed him out of the top 50 in 2026. This week he was trending in South Africa, with more than 200 searches a day, as previews of his first-round match against Aleksandar Kovacevic at the Almaty Open in Kazakhstan circulated on betting and sports sites.

This profile covers the career on the record so far: the junior years, the breakthrough, the big titles, the slump and the 2026 rebuild.

Quick facts

Full name: Stefanos Tsitsipas
Born: 12 August 1998
Nationality: Greek
Plays: Right-handed, with a one-handed backhand
Career-high singles ranking: World No. 3, first reached in August 2021
ATP singles titles: 13, including the 2019 ATP Finals and three Masters 1000 titles (Monte-Carlo 2021, 2022 and 2024)
Grand Slam finals: 2021 French Open; 2023 Australian Open
Junior highlights: Junior world No. 1; 2016 Wimbledon boys’ doubles champion
Most recent title: Gstaad, July 2026

A tennis upbringing

Tsitsipas grew up in a tennis environment. His mother played professionally on the WTA Tour and his father trained as a tennis coach, and he was introduced to the game at three, starting proper lessons at six. That background shaped his career in an unusual way: his father would go on to coach him for most of his professional life, a working partnership that has been ended and restarted more than once.

His junior career was outstanding. In 2016 he reached at least the quarter-finals of all eight tournaments he played, including all four junior Grand Slams, and became the No. 1 junior in the world after winning the Trofeo Bonfiglio in Milan. That same year he won the Wimbledon boys’ doubles title.

The fast rise, 2017 to 2019

He played his first ATP main-draw match at Rotterdam in 2017 and made his Grand Slam debut later that year as a qualifier at the French Open. The real jump came in 2018. He won his first tour title in Stockholm and reached the final of the Canadian Open in Toronto, beating four top-ten players along the way. He was the youngest player ever to do that at a single tournament.

He ended 2018 by winning the Next Gen ATP Finals, and 2019 was even better. He reached the Australian Open semi-finals after beating Roger Federer in the fourth round, won titles in Marseille and Estoril, and finished runner-up to Federer in Dubai. In November he won the ATP Finals in London, the season-ending event for the eight best players of the year. He was 21. For a long stretch after that he was almost always in the world’s top ten.

Clay, Monte-Carlo and a first major final

Clay courts suit Tsitsipas’s game, and Monte-Carlo in particular has been kind to him. In April 2021 he won the Monte-Carlo Masters, becoming the first Greek player to win a Masters 1000 event. A few weeks later he reached the French Open final, beating Alexander Zverev in five sets in the semi-finals to become the first Greek player to reach a major singles final. He lost the final to Novak Djokovic in five sets after leading by two sets to love. That August he reached world No. 3, the highest ranking ever achieved by a Greek man.

He defended his Monte-Carlo title in 2022, beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the final, and added his first grass-court title that year in Mallorca. In 2024 he won Monte-Carlo for a third time, beating Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals and Casper Ruud in the final.

The 2023 Australian Open final

His second Grand Slam final came in Melbourne in January 2023. He beat Sinner, Jiri Lehecka and Karen Khachanov among others to reach it, and the final carried an extra prize: if he had won, he would have become world No. 1 for the first time. Djokovic beat him in straight sets to win a tenth Australian Open title.

Later in 2023 he passed 300 career match wins, becoming the first man born in 1998 to reach that mark, and he won his tenth tour title in Los Cabos.

Injuries and a slide down the rankings

The 2025 season started with a high point, a title in Dubai that was his first ATP 500 title after eleven straight losses in finals at that level. It took him back into the top ten. After that, though, results dropped away. He lost early on clay, fell out of the top 20 in June for the first time since 2018, and retired from his first-round match at Wimbledon with a back problem. He then withdrew from much of the autumn with leg and back injuries and finished 2025 ranked No. 34.

The first half of 2026 was difficult. He had some good wins, including over Taylor Fritz at the United Cup, Daniil Medvedev in Doha and Alex de Minaur in Miami, but early losses at Monte-Carlo and in Munich pushed him out of the top 80 in the spring. Just before Wimbledon he changed his coaching set-up again, and at Wimbledon he was beaten by Djokovic in straight sets.

The 2026 rebuild

The turn came in Gstaad in July, on the clay of the Swiss Alps. He won the tournament, taking four of his matches in deciding sets, one of which was played over two days because of bad light, and beat Raphael Collignon in the final. It was his 13th tour title and lifted his ranking by 31 places to No. 51.

At the US Open in late August he reached the fourth round, his best result in New York, before losing to Ben Shelton, the eventual finalist. It was also his best Grand Slam run since the 2024 French Open quarter-finals.

The Almaty Open is part of the autumn indoor swing, where ranking points are valuable for players trying to secure seedings for the Australian Open in January. His opening match against the American Aleksandar Kovacevic was scheduled for Tuesday, 20 October 2026. We have not included the result, as it was not known when this profile was written.

His place in Greek tennis

Before Tsitsipas, Greece had little history in men’s tennis at the top level. He became the first Greek man to win a Masters title, to reach a major final, and to win a singles match at the Olympic Games, and at the 2024 Paris Olympics he became the first Greek player to reach the quarter-finals since tennis returned to the Games in 1988. He has also represented Greece regularly in the United Cup and the Davis Cup. Whatever happens in the rest of his career, those milestones are already secure.

Career timeline

2016: Junior world No. 1; Wimbledon boys’ doubles champion.
2017: First ATP main-draw match, in Rotterdam.
2018: First tour title in Stockholm; Canadian Open finalist; Next Gen ATP Finals champion.
2019: Australian Open semi-finalist; ATP Finals champion.
2021: Monte-Carlo champion; French Open finalist; world No. 3.
2022: Second Monte-Carlo title; first grass title in Mallorca.
2023: Australian Open finalist; 300th career win.
2024: Third Monte-Carlo title; Olympic quarter-finalist in Paris.
2025: Dubai champion; injuries end his season early.
2026: Gstaad champion; US Open fourth round.

What we could not verify

His current ATP ranking on the day of publication, which changes weekly. We give the most recent figure confirmed in our sources.
The result of his Almaty Open match, which had not been played when this was written.
The full details of his current coaching team, which have changed several times since 2024.
Prize money totals or sponsorship terms, and any personal relationship details. We do not publish those.

Sources

ATP Tour
Bleacher Nation
Dimers
Olympics.com
Wikipedia