Greek fan favourite Stefanos Tsitsipas continues to come of age in Toronto tennis spotlight

Stefanos Tsitsipas turned 23 on Thursday and stated that, on the entire, he’d slightly be 18 once more.

A birthday cake was introduced onto the court docket to commemorate the event after an emphatic 6-3, 6-2 victory over Karen Khachanov put him into the National Bank Open quarterfinals.

But it surely’s laborious to fathom why Tsitsipas would need to flip again the clock 5 years, as a result of as he was turning 18 he was a spindly child nonetheless enjoying on the junior stage.

Tsitsipas did ultimately get to No. 1 within the ITF junior rankings, however he by no means made a junior Grand Slam closing, and solely reached a semifinal in his closing 12 months of eligibility.

A month after his 18th birthday, Tsitsipas went right down to Canadian Félix Auger-Aliassime within the U.S. Open junior semifinals. Auger-Aliassime, simply turned 16, went on to win the title.

A month earlier than that birthday, Denis Shapovalov — eight months youthful — defeated him in three tight units in a Wimbledon junior semi of sterling high quality. And Shapovalov went on to win that title. He had additionally crushed Tsitsipas, with the lack of simply six video games, within the French Open junior quarterfinals that 12 months.

Briefly, the 2 youthful Canadian children owned him then.

However now — even with each Canadians within the prime 20 on this planet rankings with their careers going full velocity forward — that tall, spindly child from their junior days has discovered the passing lane and zoomed forward of them.

Of virtually everybody.

He stands at a career-best No. 3 within the rankings.

This isn’t a comparability — each participant has their very own timeline, their very own journey — however Tsitsipas’s evolution has been exceptional.

It appeared, as a junior, that he was going to be a late bloomer. That was partially as a result of he had the complete arsenal of weapons at his disposal, and infrequently studying how and when to make use of every of these instruments takes time and expertise.

However Tsitsipas sped up that timetable, nearly out of nowhere. He places a lot of it right down to the bodily.

“Reflecting again to that now, I used to be fairly tall and lean and wasn’t very muscular. I did work with a health coach again in Greece, however it was nothing in comparison with the health I’m doing now with my staff on the Mouratoglou academy,” Tsitsipas stated earlier this season. “I might say I lacked a little bit of energy; I used to be underdeveloped. Again then, these guys have been way more developed than me, and it benefited them.”

Lately, the junior rivals who bested him are glad to be taught from his journey. Shapovalov remembers it nicely.

“I did assume he was positively tall and lanky, so I’m certain the bodily half is big … He’s way more developed and he strikes so significantly better now,” Shapovalov stated.

However most of all, it’s in regards to the tennis.

“He used to have lots of holes in his sport that you might decide on, and now he’s discovered to take these away, flip them into strengths,” the Canadian stated. “He’s finished an ideal job along with his staff to be taught from different gamers and implement that in his sport. Massive reward to him for that.”

In the event you ask folks on the ATP Tour, they’re near-unanimous in singling out Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev because the hardest-working younger gamers on the market. It’s not that others don’t work laborious, however these two are relentless.

“I beat him the primary few occasions we performed two years in the past, however I really feel like right this moment he’s not the identical participant,” Auger-Aliassime stated this spring about Tsitsipas. “His calmness within the rallies, within the development of his sport, the solidity of his strokes, the standard of his serve … He’s had a pleasant interval of enchancment the previous couple of years. And I really feel I can take some classes from that, and it’ll make me a greater participant.”

Junior success is a far weaker predictor of professional success on the lads’s facet than within the girls’s sport. However Shapovalov stated it was each telling and inspiring that so lots of their junior rivals have had success. Casper Ruud of Norway was amongst that group. He’ll face Tsitsipas Friday in his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal.

Together with the 2 Canadians there was additionally Alex de Minaur, Taylor Fritz, Miomir Kecmanović, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Alexander Bublik, Reilly Opelka, Ugo Humbert … all of them battled one another again then. And within the subsequent decade, they doubtless can be battling one another for main titles. However proper now, Tsitsipas leads the pack.

“You do look again, however lots of time has passed by and it’s been about who’s creating their sport the very best. I feel Stefanos has finished an ideal job; I actually admire the place his sport has gotten to,” Shapovalov stated. “I can see he’s discovered lots of issues from different gamers. He continually appears to be taught and alter his sport, and I feel it’s the explanation why he’s been bettering at that velocity.

“It’s positively one thing I need to implement to my sport as nicely — take issues from him, from different gamers, and see if it really works for me.”