Stefanos Tsitsipas already had a lot to do when he arrived at the French Open.
He was trying to reach the level of the Grand Slam champions who preceded him, such as Novak Djokovic, who defeated Tsitsipas in two major tournament finals, when suddenly he had to defend an onslaught of the sport’s young stars, led by Carlos Alcaraz. a 20-year-old Spaniard ranked number 1 in the world. Tsitsipas, 24, has another priority: helping his younger brother Petros, 22, establish his own identity and become a top doubles player. They plan to play as many as nine events together this season, whether or not that helps Stefanos’ singles play out, which Petros isn’t sure always does.
“I don’t think I would have done this for anyone else,” Tsitsipas said last week, as his advance to his French Open quarterfinal showdown with Alcaraz on Tuesday was still two wins away. “This is our dream.”
Tennis has always been the ultimate family affair for the Tsitsipas clan. The mother, Julia Salnikova Apostoli, was a top Russian player in the 1980s and was once the best junior in the world. The father, Apostolos, is also a seasoned player, but not a former touring pro. Trained as a coach and line judge, he now coaches Stefanos, although he doesn’t interfere much when his sons play together.
There are two other tennis-playing Tsitsipas siblings, Pavlos, 17, and Elisavet, 15.
Too much family involvement can pose dangers in tennis, as the Tsitsipas family demonstrated at the Italian Open last month, when both of Stefanos’ parents spoke to him during his match against Russia’s Daniil Medvedev. After Julia spoke to him in Russian and gave him instructions that Medvedev could easily hear and understand, Stefanos used some salty language and ordered her out of his court, causing a mini-scandal in Greece. He declined to comment on the matter upon his arrival in Paris.
At the moment, his relationship with Petros is much less fraught. But navigating it all with a tennis racket, especially when the activity dominates a family’s life, requires its own skills, especially when one sibling’s talent evolves in a way that the other’s doesn’t, which is almost inevitably the case. is in tennis.
At the beginning of last year, after losing too much time and losing too much on the back roads of tennis, Petros Tsitsipas made a big decision: it was time to stop trying to make it as a singles player like his big brother and make doubles his game. There was more than tennis involved in the move. He was 21 and coming out of injury, with a singles ranking in the 700s. The time had come for Petros to forge his own identity and stop struggling through tournaments of the lowest level – “coming through the jungle”, as he described it at Roland Garros last week.
Doubles offered a path with less resistance. Good players who can’t stay near or with the most elite players on the tour and who want to learn the unique angles, quirks and strategies of doubles can make a decent living. They just have to be prepared to compete for much less prize money than the undercard or night programming at tournaments, especially if they are climbing the ladder.
This is where Stefanos comes in handy. Due to his high singles ranking (currently No. 5), the Tsitsipas brothers can compete in major tournaments that Petros might not have qualified for with a lower-ranked partner. Given Stefanos’ star power, tournament organizers are also more likely to offer them a wild card entry into the double draw.
That said, for Petros to rise in doubles in a way he couldn’t in singles, he needs to play with Stefanos more than eight or nine times a year, to learn the game and win as much as possible. Lately, when his older brother was unavailable, he played in tournaments on the Challenger tour with Sander Arends, a 31-year-old from the Netherlands who never made the top 1,000 in singles, but ranks 98th in doubles . Last year Petros had another one teammate almost weekly. He has moved up to 115th in the ranking, from below 400 two years ago.
“It’s like learning to play chess,” Petros said.
He can easily find a role model in the locker room. Jamie Murray has spent years trying to be known as something other than the brother of Andy Murray, who in 2013 became the first British man in 77 years to win Wimbledon.
Jamie Murray said he still hears people say “That’s Andy Murray’s brother” as he walks across the grounds of a tennis tournament, something he learned to accept years ago.
“It’s no use fighting it,” he said.
But Murray said he felt people stopped thinking of him after 2016 as a sibling of someone who was better at his sport than he was. the same year his brother became the top ranked singles player.
Now he sees Petros trying to achieve the same thing, trying to make his own way with people who usually think of him as just someone’s brother.
“It’s not easy,” he said.
When Petros plays with Stefanos instead of a specialist, doubles feels like a different game, Petros said. The specialist may be better at doubles than Stefanos, but he’s not nearly as good a tennis player. With a specialist, the game revolves around tactics and strategy. Stefanos – like any great single player – is all about feel and improvisation.
“More freelance,” Petros said, like the difference between playing sheet music or jamming with a uniquely gifted musician who thrives on spontaneity.
It used to be accepted as conventional wisdom that playing doubles improves singles, keeps the reflexes sharp and the mind focused during a major tournament. Petros isn’t so sure this is always true, especially with the increasingly physical grind that singles has become and how different the fast-paced rallies of doubles are from the basic fights of singles.
That was no problem at the French Open. The Tsitsipas brothers lost a heartbreaking first-round match in a third-set tiebreak.
“Believe me, it sucks,” said Stefanos the next day. “To lose that with your brother, it sucks more than usual.”
However, there is now no turning back. As long as Stefanos isn’t too tired from a deep run at the French Open, the brothers hope to play Wimbledon, where men’s doubles will be best-of-three sets instead of best-of-five this year. From there, they also want to play the summer tournaments in North America, including the US Open.
Petros has worked so hard, Stefanos said. He wants to help him get as far as possible.
“I just want to go for it,” said Stefanos.
They want to represent Greece at the Olympics and win the Davis Cup.
“Doing that with your brother is probably the most beautiful thing you can see on a tennis court,” he said.
But first he has another problem: Alcaraz in the French Open singles quarterfinals.