Stefanos Tsitsipas was delighted to successfully defend his Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters title this week. However, what made it “double” special was how deep he had to dig to lift the trophy in the Principality again.
“It was a great way to finish it off with a lot of fights at the end,” Tsitsipas said. “[No era] so much [sobre] look for clean winners or too beautiful tennis, but try to work hard on every point and push the limits, as I like to say.”
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In the semifinals, Tsitsipas came back from 0-4 in the third set against Diego Schwartzman. In the final, he blew the opportunity to take the match out at 5-4 in the second set. But rather than panic, the two-time Monte-Carlo champion quickly recovered to complete his victory in the tie-break that followed.
Tsitsipas earned 1,000 ATP Rankings points with his victory, propelling him to second place in the ATP Race To Turin on Monday as he attempts to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals for the fourth consecutive year. But the 23-year-old has set his sights even higher.
“I have a surface that I could adapt to more easily than other surfaces and we know what it is,” Tsitsipas said of his recent performance on clay. “My goal since I realized that … is that if I am able to score points [en] this surface as much as I can and really focus a little bit more on the other surfaces, I can really put together a great year, maybe even finish in the top two tennis players at the end of the season.”
The 2019 Nitto ATP Finals champion has had a strong start to the season, which has included a run to the Australian Open semi-finals and the final in Rotterdam on top of his triumph in Monte Carlo. His goal is to bring the level he did in the Principality throughout the year.
“I always try to get the best I can out of the clay and adapt to the other surfaces. I really want to do well on hard and grass this year, because I feel like I can really score a lot of points there,” Tsitsipas said. “If I can win matches as consistently as I do on this surface, I think I have a great chance to finish the year in the top two, which is a big goal for me to finally be there and belong in that special group of guys. players”.
Only five active players (Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Daniil Medvedev) have reached World No. 2, and all of them have risen to World No. 1. Tsitsipas has reached his career high as World No. 3.
“My tennis is great, I think everywhere, with clay maybe being the surface I can adapt to the best. I have had times where I was trying to apply what I apply on clay over hard. It really doesn’t seem to be working much. Sometimes it’s not really the way to go,” Tsitsipas said. “But this has also [enseñado] a lot that I have to adjust and that I should never get obsessive about, ‘Okay, whatever works on clay should work on faster surfaces.’”
For now, Tsitsipas will not look too far ahead. The Greek returns to work this week at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. The top seed is a two-time ATP 500 finalist, where he will try to lift another trophy.
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