By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday March 9, 2025
Indian Wells, California – Stefanos Tsitsipas was taking part in poorly and never discovering methods to channel the advances he was making on the apply court docket into his matches. He needed to do one thing about it – so he did.
After his title in Dubai final month – his first on a hardcourt since 2023 – he posted a quote on social media: “They stated my recreation was sinking so I bought myself a ship.”
Extra: Tsitsipas Talks About New Racquet After Dubai Triumph
Requested to elaborate on that assertion on Sunday, he talked about his struggles to reporters within the BNP Paribas Open fundamental press room.
“The previous couple of months weren’t superb for me,” he advised reporters after his 6-3, 6-3 takeout of Matteo Berrettini on Sunday at Indian Wells. “I did not have any huge outcomes or victories that I may say that I am headed in direction of a very good path with my recreation. So I really feel like that caption type of was a abstract of the previous few months.”
Tsitsipas is at all times fast to put up a humorous quote on his X account, so a number of the issues he says might be taken with a grain of salt, however this one rings true for the Greek. He was out of types together with his recreation, and struggling to seek out his footing once more after dropping out of the High 10.
“I identical to a bit of little bit of that humor like that. Would not damage,” he stated.
It’s no secret that Tsitsipas has not too long ago began utilizing a brand new racquet. With out naming names – it’s nonetheless a blacked-out body he touts – he pointed to the explanations for the change with out really mentioning the change throughout his press convention.
“I used to be looking for methods to enhance,” he stated. “I really feel like a few of my opponents that I bought to play had been overpowering me and doing issues a lot better than me when it got here to taking part in larger tennis. My complete profession I have been recognized to have the ability to play huge tennis however it wasn’t sufficiently big, and I felt like I needed to do one thing about it.”
Reportedly his new racquet has a 16” x 20” string sample, which supplies him each extra spin potential and extra energy. Some reporters say that Tsitsipas’ groundstrokes have been shut to five MPH larger than they had been previous to the shift.
On Sunday Tsitsipas was assertive from begin to end. He dropped simply eight factors on serve and cleaned up most factors with serve-plus-one. He’s clearly a extra assured participant than he was a month in the past, earlier than the brand new racquet and the brand new strings.
“It felt like I wasn’t capable of exit on the court docket and actually try this to the extent that I used to be doing it in apply,” Tsitsipas stated. “I used to be taking part in apply units, and I used to be taking part in very well. I used to be successful a number of the apply units in opposition to good opponents. It is simply that it did not click on when it got here to the match, and I needed to wait a bit of longer for that.
“With a couple of extra modifications that I added to my recreation I felt prefer it added a number of confidence stepping out onto the tennis court docket.”
