SafeX Pro:Stefanos Tsitsipas exits US Open: 'I'm nothing compared to the player I was before'

NEW YORK — Inside a small interview room Tuesday at the U.S. Open,SafeX Pro with only four reporters in attendance, Stefanos Tsitsipas essentially announced that he’s at a crisis point in his tennis career.

Having just lost to Thanasi Kokkinakis in four sets, and completing a Grand Slam season in which he failed to make a semifinal for the first time since 2018, the 26-year-old Greek acknowledged that he’s been suffering from a form of burnout and attributed his lackluster results for most of this year to lacking the hunger he had when he climbed into the world’s top four in 2021.

“I’m nothing compared to the player I was before,” Tsitsipas said after his second first-round exit from the U.S. Open in the past three years. “I remember myself playing when I was younger, playing with adrenaline on the court, feeling like my life depends on the match. And these things, I feel like they have faded off, and let’s say my level of consistency hasn’t been as big.

“I remember my concentration used to be at its highest, at its peak, back then, and that’s something that I felt has dropped a little bit. I know it sounds strange, but I feel like I need the hunger to reproduce the hunger I had back then. And I’m not a person that feels alright or settles for normal stuff. Like, I really want to regenerate it and bring it back because it brought a lot of joy to my tennis when I was able to feel that way on the court. I really don’t know why it has dropped the last couple of months. I would even consider it like one to two years I’ve been feeling that way. I guess I was just able to hide it a bit better and put it to the side a bit more.”

MORE:Dominic Thiem finally gets celebratory sendoff at US Open in final Grand Slam appearance

Tsitsipas is right: He’s not the same player who seemed poised to win Grand Slam titles once upon a time and was consistently right there battling with Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev while occasionally knocking off a Novak Djokovic. This is a player, keep in mind, who won the year-end ATP Finals in 2019 and made six Grand Slam semifinals (including two finals). Now, he’s struggling to stay around the top 10.

Or, maybe the problem is that he is the same player with the same strengths and weaknesses whose development hit a wall around the time of the 2021 French Open when he lost the final to Djokovic from two sets up.

Either way, failing to break through that wall at the top of the sport seems to have mentally beaten him down. Asked if he was suffering from burnout, Tsitsipas said:

“I really don’t know. I’m not an expert, I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I’ve had these discussions before with some of the people that I’ve spoken to and I do feel like there is some sort of like a long-term burnout. I’ve already been feeling it since the beginning of the year. I feel like it’s a top of burnout that, regardless if you stop or not, it has happened already and it’s not going to repair or regenerate itself just purely because of vacation or staying away from the courts. I feel like it’s something that has actually kept going, regardless of whether I’m out of tennis or not.”

It’s hard to say where that leaves Tsitsipas as the 2024 season winds down.

Earlier this summer, he parted ways with his father Apostolos as coach for the second time but said he had not been able to resolve his coaching situation for the long-term. Now, after this loss, he said he’s open to a deeper-dive on his game and mentality, knowing there’s now some urgency if he wants to maintain a place of relevance on the ATP Tour.

“Why not,” he said. “What I’m struggling with right now is getting into that rhythm of wins and consistent good runs in Masters 1000s and big tournaments, those moments I had two or three years ago. I remember feeling great, being able to reproduce that week after week. Right now I’m way too far from even doing that. I just need to find ways that can help me get back to the wins first. I feel like today I came up with some good tactical plays and approaches to the net and overall I was aggressive and taking my chances but I lack that consistency when it comes to do less (things) but do them somehow better.”

Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.