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In 1956, the Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia to say a gold medal on the MCG within the Olympic Video games in Melbourne.
Some 65 years later, the grandson of striker Sergei Salnikov, the person who scored two decisive objectives to assist the Soviet Union by means of to the semi-final stage, is trying to emulate his maternal grandfather and change into a Melbourne champion of his personal.
Greek tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas even carries a much-loved T-shirt studying ‘USSR 1956’, in reference to the grandfather he by no means met, in his baggage when arriving in Melbourne, in line with the BBC.
And arriving in Melbourne ties collectively two issues which imply rather a lot to the 22-year-old: household and the Australian Open.
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His mom, a former skilled tennis participant herself, and his father, a tennis coach, comply with him round on tour and have an in depth bond with their son – a lot in order that rigidity typically boils to the floor.
On the ATP Cup in January final yr, Tsitsipas by accident harm his father with a smashed racquet together with the court docket earlier than a month later in Dubai admitting that he felt his dad and mom had been “manner too concerned”.
That prompted his mom to attend one among his press conferences herself and pose a sequence of inquiries to him in regards to the significance of household to success in tennis, leaving the star in a clumsy place.
It was a yr sooner than that when Tsitsipas introduced himself on the worldwide tennis scene, when he dumped six-time Australian Open winner and then-defending champion Roger Federer out of the match on the way in which to reaching the semi-finals.
Since then he has solely kicked on, successful 4 ATP titles and climbing to a present career-high rating of world no.6 to be thought-about by many because the inheritor to dominant ‘large three’ of Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
Tsitsipas is into the third spherical of the Australian Open this yr after breaking down the cussed never-say-die resolve of native hero Thanasi Kokkinakis in a five-set, four-hour thriller on Thursday night time that even the Greek Gods would have authorized of.
However the long-haired fifth seed in Melbourne has a never-say-die perspective of his personal, drawn from a real-life survivor’s story from when he was simply 18 – two years after starting coaching at an elite academy in France run by Serena Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and three years earlier than beating Federer in that memorable four-set, fourth-round battle in 2019.
In October 2016, swimming off the coast of the Greek island of Crete, Tsitsipas and a pal almost drowned after being dragged out to sea by a sudden and life-threatening present.
With out understanding what was taking place, they each panicked and have become frantic making an attempt to combat the power of the present, exhausting themselves to the purpose the place Tsitsipas had change into satisfied that he was about to die.
Talking on his personal YouTube video titled ‘The day I used to be imagined to lose my life’, he holds again tears to explain how the occasion unfolded.
“We weren’t truly imagined to go swimming for very lengthy, we had been simply imagined to refresh ourselves. I jumped within the sea and bear in mind hitting my leg on a rock. I appeared again and I used to be 30 or 40 metres away from the seashore with out even understanding what was happening,” he mentioned.
“The waves had been getting greater and greater, it was stormy and there was lots of wind. There was no lifeguard there and I bear in mind feeling a way of panic. We had been making an attempt to swim again to the seashore nevertheless it was fully not possible to make it. The extra I used to be making an attempt, the much less probability I needed to make it.
“I bear in mind surrendering. I bear in mind the flashback when time froze. Nothing moved. I couldn’t really feel something. There was a sudden flashback of my whole life.
“I bear in mind drowning. I keep in mind that feeling of dying. For a second I assumed I used to be lifeless already.”
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It wasn’t till his father, Apostolos, noticed them and arrived to assist his son again to the seashore earlier than going again out into the damaging present to seek out his pal.
“He was swimming in direction of me, I may see the worry in his eyes – he may see the worry in my eyes,” Tsitsipas added. “It gave me hope. If we had been imagined to die and lose our lives that day, then we’d do it collectively. He was a hero. He didn’t thoughts a lot about himself.
“That was a day that I noticed life in a unique perspective. I bear in mind saying to myself, ‘you can not really feel worry. That is the worst it may ever get.’
“I felt fearless, like I may do something after that.”
It’s that fearlessness which he has taken into the Australian Open this yr, knocking out a house favorite with an inspirational story of his personal to take his place as an adopted son of Melbourne, a metropolis which boasts extra Greeks than wherever else on the earth exterior of Greece.
And also you’ll have the ability to hear each one among them as he takes on Swede Mikael Ymer within the third spherical on Saturday.
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