Stefanos Tsitsipas reveals friendly rankings rivalry with girlfriend Paula Badosa
Stefanos Tsitsipas has revealed his ambition to become world No 1 and surpass both his own career-best mark and that of his girlfriend Paula Badosa.
Tsitsipas currently has a career-best ranking of world No 3 and wants to move past Badosa’s best position of world No 2 into that coveted top spot.
Still ending the year on top of the pile is not beyond the realm of possibility with two more Masters events before the final Grand Slam of the year and the re-addition of the full Chinese swing, including the ninth Masters event of the year in Shanghai.
Despite his title win in Los Cabos, Tsitsipas remains some way adrift of the top three in the rankings and will need to pick up multiple big titles to keep himself in the race to end the year as No 1.
Tsitsipas joked in Los Cabos that he would like to become world No 1 because that would mean besting his own career mark as well as that of Badosa.
“My goals are to surpass Paula’s best ranking, which is World No. 2. And to get better than that I am,” Tsitsipas said.
“The good thing about us is that we get competitive in those things in a healthy way so I hope I get to equal it or even better,” he added.
Tsitsipas opted not to enter the ATP 500 Citi Open this week, instead kicking off his North American swing in Los Cabos with a title win thanks to a victory over Alex De Minaur in the championship match.
He feels his results in Mexico will give him a platform to kick on and finish the season strong.
Right now, good first set to get there or move to get there. But still very long journey to get to a point like this. I feel like my tennis is good and that was a good test for me this week,” Tsitsipas said.
“I will take the positives out of this week. I had a few good matches here and I think it’s a good start to the [North American hardcourt] swing. We’ve experienced a lot of good tennis this week from a lot of good players. The competition was high, and I’m happy to walk away with the trophy.”
The win in Los Cabos will see Tsitsipas move up one place on the ATP Rankings to return to the No 4 ranking. #
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