Sometimes you have to tip your hat and say “too good”.
Stefanos Tsitsipas played perhaps the best tennis of his career to reach the Mutua Madrid Open final, but didn’t have an answer to the relentless baseline play of Novak Djokovic in Sunday’s championship match. The Greek defeated Djokovic in their only previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting last August at the Rogers Cup, but the World No. 1 had a clear game plan in Madrid and stuck with it throughout the 93-minute battle.
“He deserved the victory. He played unbelievable. I couldn't do much,” said Tsitsipas. “He played quite smart, tried moving me around the court. He knew I had a tough match last night, so he took advantage…[made] me run and suffer more and I just didn't have solutions.
“He has the best backhand I have ever seen in a human being. He controls it so well. He can play cross-court, he can play down the line the same way. And that's very difficult to deal with. Usually some players have a good stroke, but it's not that consistent…that is why he has been dominating for so many years.”
Tsitsipas recorded a career-best win over Rafael Nadal on Saturday to reach the final, but the quick turnaround didn’t help his cause. He had spent more than six hours on court since Friday afternoon between his two previous singles matches and a doubles semi-final with Wesley Koolhof, which made the grueling rallies required to defeat Djokovic an even harder task.
“Physically, I was not there. My legs were not coping with my mind. I could feel the fatigue and soreness not just in my legs, but everywhere in my body,” said Tsitsipas. “It's tough physically because you always have to reach your maximum effort and to give your highest level to beat those guys. They just make you suffer. It is really tough to physically cope with that and I think that's the biggest challenge if you’re going to play all of those guys in the same tournament.”
But despite the loss, Tsitsipas has plenty of positives to take from Madrid. He reached his second Masters 1000 final, scored his first victory over a player inside the Top 2 of the ATP Rankings and will reach a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 7 on Monday.
With more tour-level wins (27) than any player this season and more tournaments (28) played in the past 12 months than anyone inside the Top 25, fitness has never been a weak point for Tsitsipas. But after learning what it takes to defeat the world’s greatest players in back-to-back matches, he’s determined to get even stronger to rise to the challenge.
“It's part of the plan at some point to get physically better, do everything better, be more professional…because Djokovic and Nadal have been doing well in tournaments over and over again, week by week,” said Tsitsipas. “I think most of them have won Madrid, Rome, Monte-Carlo…the consistency level is just insane, it’s amazing. I really hope I get close to that. It is one of my dreams and my goals to be consistent with every single tournament that I play.”
