How tennis couples like ‘Tsitsidosa’ navigate what it’s like to date a tennis player

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NEW YORK — In the late afternoon sunshine Friday, spectators were forced to stand in the bleachers of a packed Court 11 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre. Outside, more queued to get in. Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, two superstars of American tennis, were busy slugging it out on Arthur Ashe Stadium, but a first-round, mixed-doubles match on the outside courts was the hottest ticket at the U.S. Open.

This is the pull of Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas, more familiarly known as “Tsitsidosa.”

Badosa and Tsitsipas, both 26, are the most talked-about couple in tennis. Like any celebrity couple, there are TikToks. There are fan cams. There are hashtags. Unlike nearly any celebrity couple, there are Grand Slam tennis tournaments to play in together.

In their first ever competitive match, they ended up losing, 7-6(3), 6-4 to Mexican pair Giuliana Olmos and Santiago Gonzalez.

Then, on Sunday, Badosa, who is the No. 26 seed in the women’s singles, beat Wang Yafan of China 6-1, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 2021. She had never been past the second round in New York before.

Tsitsipas, the men’s No. 11 seed here, sat and watched. He had lost to Thanasi Kokkinakis, the Australian, on day one.

A few weeks ago, the 2024 Olympics in Paris were abuzz with are they/aren’t they speculation around mixed doubles gold medallists Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac. Siniakova announced the couple’s split on social media before the Games, but they seemed pretty close when they won the final. Since then, they have been coy about their relationship status. Siniakova even told a press conference that “we like to make you a bit confused”.

A month earlier, Alex de Minaur sped across the Wimbledon grounds in the name of love.

As soon as he finished his second-round match against Jaume Munar on Court 3, he jumped on the exercise bike, downed a protein shake, showered, and then sprinted over to Court 1, to see his girlfriend Katie Boulter in action against her British compatriot Harriet Dart. After being directed to the wrong entrance, he eventually found his seat — to endure the agony of watching Boulter lose a final set tiebreak.

It’s been another summer of love in tennis.

World No. 1 Jannik Sinner and world No. 15 Anna Kalinskaya recently started dating; there are married couples, including Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils, who was in the stands watching his wife lose to Coco Gauff on Friday. There are likely many more under the radar.

These relationships are as different as the individuals involved; they are both relatable and difficult to imagine. Most people can envisage dating someone who does the same job or works for the same company. But most people’s jobs don’t involve travelling the world to play a very selfish sport in front of thousands of people, sometimes with — or even against — your partner.

Like every relationship, tennis romances have as many upsides as they do challenges. And wrapped up in all of them is that cursed question: What happens if you guys break up?

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There have always been relationships in tennis.

Love is a key part of the tennis vernacular (even if it’s actually a derivative of the French “l’oeuf,” meaning egg). A scene from the 2012 film “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” in which the main male character replies, “Whatever you say, love” to a girl just calling the score, has recently given this connection new life. It’s been used as a sound on TikTok, with real couples reenacting the video on real courts.

In the 1970s, the romance between American golden couple Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors became an obsession; 22-time Grand Slam champion Steffi Graf started dating eight-time winner Andre Agassi soon after her retirement in 1999. They are now close to their silver wedding anniversary and have two children, Jaz Elle and Jaden. A film about their relationship, Perfect Match, was released on Amazon’s German streaming platforms this year.

Agassi documented much of their courtship, which was on-and-off for nine years, in his autobiography, Open, including having his hopes of dancing with Graf at the 1992 Wimbledon champions’ ball spurned when organizers cancelled the event.

The early 2000s saw two of the young stars of the game, Lleyton Hewitt and Kim Clijsters, date before their split in 2004, while 2015 U.S. Open champion Flavia Pennetta and one-time world No. 8 Fabio Fognini married eight years ago and now have three kids.

Tennis relationships have become even more commonplace in the last few years, and that’s just going off the couples that the wider world knows about. Tennis insiders put this down partly to the proliferation of combined events.

Most tournaments now host men’s and women’s events, but the picture was very different even as late as the mid-1990s. Back then, the Miami Open and the Sydney International were the only combined tournaments outside the four majors.

There are other, more technological reasons for the tennis love boom.

“My theory is that it’s because of social media that players are now a bit more straightforward. Sliding into each others’ DMs and things like that,” says Andrea Petkovic, the retired former world No. 9, who earlier this year wrote an enlightening blog post about the challenges of dating as a tennis player.

One of the things these players value is having someone who understands exactly what they are going through.

“I can always reach out to my partner, who has spent the same amount of time that I have spent on the court trying to figure out the game,” Tsitsipas said of Badosa. “We both share the same passion and we both do the same thing in life.

“Outside of it, we still have times where we completely disconnect from tennis. It’s a great relationship, because we can combine from both worlds and we can, I feel like, understand each other’s lives so much better than any other type of relationship because we know the struggles of it and the rhythms.”

Siniakova, who is still in the women’s doubles here, expressed similar sentiments about Machac at the French Open in June.

“From my side, it’s totally different when someone is going through the same thing. It’s harder if someone is trying to support you but they have no idea how it feels on the court.”

Svitolina added that “when we have tough moments, we know what to say. After losses, I can be really moody for a couple of days, really difficult to handle. He knows how to treat me and how to comfort me. I let him play video games to release all these negative things that sometimes he has after the losses.”

After losing to Gauff on Friday, Svitolina said that it was strictly logistics when she spoke to Monfils, and the kind of admin every tennis player knows too well: sorting out flights so they can get home as quickly as possible.

For De Minaur, “It’s pretty simple, because we’re both in the same job, so we both understand what it is to be a tennis player.”

People close to De Minaur and Boulter say that both have improved as players since they began dating. Boulter believes the relationship has helped her game immeasurably, because she can share her concerns with someone both on her side and inside the top 10. Boulter, the No. 31 seed at this year’s U.S. Open, exited in the second round on Thursday; on Saturday night, De Minaur got through a fading Dan Evans in four sets to reach the fourth round.

Badosa and Tsitsipas have expressed similar sentiments. Badosa asks Tsitsipas for his tips and analysis of her opponents.

“Our primary goal is to help each other figure certain things out,” Tsitsipas says. “I feel like we’re equally as knowledgeable in our craft and hold a lot of understanding of how certain situations shall be dealt with. Paula keeps saying all the time that she wishes she had my forehand. Sometimes I also think, ‘Oh, gosh, I wish I had her returns’. She destroys the ball on the returns, and it seems so effortless from her side.”

On Friday, the pair were often deep in conversation during the change of ends, with Tsitsipas animatedly shadow-swinging.

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Doing the thing you love with the person you love can be great. But tennis is a sport with one winner and one loser. One player might want to celebrate a win, while their partner is trying to process a crushing defeat. This has been the dynamic at the U.S. Open this week for Tsitsidosa, with Tsitsipas going out in the first round while Badosa builds on her recent form. Over the course of this summer, she has peaked while he has troughed. A tricky dynamic for any couple.

Meanwhile, one can only imagine the awkwardness one Sunday in June, when Sinner won a title in the German city of Halle. At the same time, Kalinskaya was in the middle of losing a final a couple of hours’ drive away in Berlin, squandering six championship points in the process.

“Hi, darling. So how was your day at work…?”

Petkovic says that this is one of the biggest challenges of going out with a fellow player.

“As the one bearing the loss, you don’t want to take the joy away from the one who has won,” she writes in her Finite Jest post about dating. “As the one bathing in triumph, you don’t want to rub the euphoria of winning in your partner’s face. So, you just circle around each other in subdued moods hoping to get through the day.”

Badosa said earlier this week that “to manage (this situation), you have to have a very good heart and zero ego. And he (Tsitsipas) has that, I have it. We manage that really well. We just want the best for us.”

The stress of watching each other’s matches is also an occupational hazard.

Machac, who plays Jack Draper in the U.S. Open fourth round tomorrow (Monday), said he was so tense watching Siniakova at the French Open that he “couldn’t look”. Badosa said this week that she and Tsitsipas “both suffer a lot” watching each other.

After reaching the fourth round by beating Elena-Gabriela Ruse in an excruciatingly tight match, Badosa revealed that Tsitsipas came running towards her and said, “I almost had a heart attack.”

Badosa knew it was coming. “When it was six-all in the (deciding) tie-break I was like, ‘Stef for sure is having a heart attack right now,” she laughed.

Unlike Monfils, Tsitsipas prefers not to be in the stands for his partner’s matches, as he finds it too stressful. Being on-site, and travelling the world together, can also be stressful enough. Tennis players have very tailored schedules, so couples can end up feeling like two ships passing in the night.

Svitolina talked about this at Wimbledon in relation to her and Monfils, while at the French Open, Machac said that when he finally had an afternoon off, 11 days into the tournament, Siniakova was busy playing doubles. He added the pair had only seen each other for breakfast once, explaining “our schedules have been totally different, and you don’t wake up at 7 a.m. if you can sleep until 10 a.m”.

In a scene from the Netflix documentary Break Point, Matteo Berrettini is preparing to play in the Australian Open semifinals. He clashes with his then-girlfriend, Ajla Tomljanovic.

“I have to sleep. You go downstairs and ask for a room,” Berrettini says to Tomljanovic, who is getting up early the next morning to film a TV appearance from their hotel.

“I’m going to say on air that you kicked me out,” Tomljanovic replied, jokingly.

“But they’re going to agree with me,” Berrettini said. “I’m still in the Australian Open!”

The pair broke up a few weeks later.

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Recently-retired Alison Van Uytvanck has a particularly informed perspective on breaking up as a tennis couple.

The former world No. 37 and French Open quarterfinalist played doubles with, and singles against Greet Minnen, her girlfriend of five years.

Van Uytvanck loved training together in their native Belgium, and becoming the first couple to play doubles together at Wimbledon in 2019 was a “dream come true”. But there were challenges too.

“There are some disadvantages that everything is a competition,” Van Uytvanck said. “Even without tennis. Let’s say you’re doing something physically, then it’s like, ‘I want to do better than you’. We were always talking about tennis, tennis, tennis, and there was nothing else. That was something not as nice, I would say.”

As they shared in each other’s successes and Minnen climbed up the rankings, they also had to do the thing they’d been dreading: Play against each other.

It happened in July 2019 at the Liqui Moly Open in Karlsruhe, Germany, a few weeks after they’d played doubles together at Wimbledon. Van Uytvanck won, as she did when they played again at an ITF event in Nottingham, England, a couple of years later.

“It wasn’t fun,” Van Uytvanck says. “We knew exactly how the other one was going to play, and it was tough to just focus on yourself.”

Van Uytvanck and Minnen, who remain on good terms, broke up a few months after that second meeting. But they still kept running into one another at tournaments. “At the beginning, it was a bit weird,” Van Uytvanck says.

“And then we were just like, ‘Hi. How are you doing?’ Some small talk.”

Both are with other partners now, though they do still share a dog back in Belgium.

Badosa and Tsitsipas have also broken up in the past, with their respective social media accounts turning into goldmines for fans-turned-sleuths trying to figure out if their romance would go from off to back on, as it has now.

Their on-court exploits aren’t always rosy either.

Tsitsipas smashed his racket into the court Friday, even though he said afterwards how much he’d enjoyed himself. During the match, the pair comforted each other following missed shots and earnestly talked tactics. They shared a warm embrace when Badosa couldn’t retrieve an Olmos smash to end the match and may play again together at the Australian Open.

Once the match was done, Badosa’s focus turned straight to Sunday, and her fourth-round encounter with Wang. She raced through, playing aggressive, confident tennis, as she has done all summer while her boyfriend’s form has taken a dive.

For Tsistipas, he had to endure the agony of watching, but came out with the joy of his partner’s success.

It’s the balance you have to strike to make it work as a tennis couple.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Demetrius Robinson)