Stefanos Tsitsipas

Stefanos Tsitsipas (, ; born 12 August 1998) is a Greek professional tennis player.

He has been ranked as high as world No. 3 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he first achieved on 9 August 2021, making him the highest-ranked Greek player in history alongside Maria Sakkari.

Tsitsipas was born on 12 August 1998 to Apostolos Tsitsipas and Julia Apostoli (née Salnikova) in Athens.

His father is Greek and was born in Proastio, Karditsa and his mother is Russian.

His maternal grandfather, Sergei Salnikov, was a Soviet footballer who played for Zenit Leningrad, Spartak Moscow and Dynamo Moscow.

Salnikov was also half Greek.

Both of his parents are experienced tennis players, and his mother in particular was a world No. 1 junior who had a career-high professional ranking inside the top 200 and represented the Soviet Union in the Federation Cup.

His parents had been working as tennis instructors at the Astir Palace resort hotel in Vouliagmeni at the time of his birth.

They originally met at a WTA tournament in Athens where his mother was competing and his father was a line judge.

Stefanos has three younger siblings: two brothers Petros and Pavlos, and a sister Elisavet who is the youngest.

All of his siblings are also tennis players.

With their strong backgrounds in tennis, Tsitsipas's parents got their oldest son started on tennis at a very young age.

Stefanos has said, "My first memory is to be three and to hit balls with my father in the gap between lessons. I remember watching games on TV, as a baby, I can not tell you who was playing, but I remember watching."

He also participated in other sports as a kid, including football and swimming.

His father said Stefanos made the decision to become a tennis player himself, recalling that his son "woke up in the middle of the night" after a tournament in France at age nine and told him "Dad, I have to tell you something: I want to become a tennis player, I like the competition, I like the challenge."

Tsitsipas began taking lessons at Tennis Club Glyfada near Athens at the age of six, and has continued to train there.

His father has always served as his primary coach, and he formally studied tennis coaching at the University of Athens to help train his children.

He began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2013 at the age of 14.

He did not play in any high-level Grade A tournaments until the Abierto Juvenil Mexicano in November 2014, but was able to make it all the way to the final of his second career Grade A event at the Orange Bowl a month later.

Tsitsipas had entered the tournament ranked outside of the top 100 in the junior rankings.

In 2015, Tsitsipas also began training at the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy, splitting time between France and Greece during this period.

Tsitsipas is a former world No. 1 junior.

In 2015, Tsitsipas got his first opportunity to play in the junior Grand Slam tournaments.

In these four events, a quarterfinal at the Australian Open was his best result.

He did not win any singles finals that year, but he did have another runner-up finish at the Orange Bowl, this time losing to Miomir Kecmanović in a third set tiebreak.

He finished the season as the No. 14 ranked junior in the world.

As a junior, he was ranked No. 1 in the world, and won the 2016 Wimbledon boys' doubles event.

In 2016, Tsitsipas had a breakout year, reaching at least the quarterfinals of all eight tournaments that he played, including all four Grand Slams.

He became the top-ranked junior in the world after winning his first Grade A title at the Trofeo Bonfiglio.

Tsitsipas also won the European Junior Championships later in the year.

Tsitsipas's biggest title of the season came in doubles, when he partnered with Estonian player Kenneth Raisma to win his only junior Grand Slam event at Wimbledon.

Winning his first match on the ATP Tour in late 2017, Tsitsipas quickly ascended the ATP rankings the following year.

He won his first title at the 2018 Stockholm Open and made a runner-up finish at the 2018 Canadian Open, becoming the youngest player to defeat four top ten opponents in a single tournament at the latter event.

Since culminating that season with an exhibition title at the Next Gen ATP Finals, Tsitsipas has remained a constant fixture in the top 10 of the ATP rankings.

He won his first Masters 1000 event at the 2021 Monte-Carlo Masters, and defended his title in 2022.

Tsitsipas was the champion at the 2019 ATP Finals, becoming the youngest winner of the year-end championships in eighteen years.

He has won ten ATP singles titles (including two Masters 1000 championships) and has contested two Major finals at the 2021 French Open and 2023 Australian Open, finishing runner-up to Novak Djokovic both times.

He has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 64, achieved on 29 August 2022.

Born into a tennis family – his mother Julia was a professional on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour and his father Apostolos trained as a tennis coach – Tsitsipas was introduced to the sport at age three and began taking lessons at age six.

Tsitsipas was named the Greek Male Athlete of the Year for 2019.