‘Negative s***’ – Four-time major winner explains why Stefanos Tsitsipas’ split with father is paying off
Stefanos Tsitsipas’ decision to part ways with his coach and father, Apostolos, has been vindicated following his title triumph in Gstaad.
That is according to four-time women’s doubles major winner Rennae Stubbs, who said it was about time the former world No 3 split with his dad after a difficult couple of years on the ATP Tour.
Tsitsipas had a brief coaching spell with former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic last year but that ended after just two months, before he went back to his father again.
Just three weeks after ending his latest spell with Apostolos, the 27-year-old is back in the winners’ enclosure for the first time in 16 months after winning the ATP 250 event on Sunday.
Following his three-set win over Raphael Collignon, the Greek said, “It’s a crazy feeling right now. I survived a marathon and it was a long week. I played some crazy matches in the past couple of days. Every single match felt like it was never finished, and somehow I managed to convert every single time and get the victory.
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“Today I couldn’t be more blessed, couldn’t be more happy. It’s been an incredible effort from my side to go out there and do that over and over again. I’ve dealt with some pain in the past couple of days. So I’ve had to withstand a lot of different things. The result was obviously the best thing I would have imagined at the beginning of the week.”
Tsitsipas, who fell to 87th in the world after Wimbledon, now has Thomas Perrin in his corner, a man who has coached at Patrick Mouratoglou’s academy for many years.
After rising back up to 49th in the rankings with his win in Switzerland, Serena Williams’ coach Stubbs says it was the right decision to “finally flick his dad as his coach”, before providing some apparent insight into what his father was like during matches.
She said on the latest episode of The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast, “Some would say his dad’s gotten him here and there, and I am like, but the problem is Stef loses his s*** on the court and half the time it’s not even at his tennis, it’s at his dad, and his dad is yelping at him from the sideline… that is so negative. I know because I was told what he was saying at times by somebody who speaks Greek.
“So maybe you need someone out there who is making you feel good, and half the time, that’s what coaches do. There are certain things you have to tell your player, whether it be Xs and Os and what we’re going to work on and what we’re gonna get better at.
“But in the end you have to have someone supportive of you, who really believes in you when you get into the trenches and when you get down those five match points in the second round, and you look up, and Sven Groeneveld (Karolina Muchova’s coach) is pounding his chest and saying ‘Keep fighting’.
“You need to look up and see a coach who believes in you, who thinks that you can still win, and not someone who is going to yelp negative s*** at you that makes you feel terrible on the court. Clearly that is finally working for Stef, and it’s nice to see him back.”
Tsitsipas’ last title success came at the Dubai Open in March 2025.
