Move over ‘Big Four’ – meet the next
From a ‘Greek god’ to America’s golden boy, five rising stars tell their stories to Simon Briggs
South Korea and Mexico. I was surprised. Maybe other countries have a better plan, but I would really like to know how it works.”
Like his two most visible contemporaries – Alexander Zverev and Denis Shapovalov – Tsitsipas has a Russian connection through his mother, Julia, who was born in Moscow and reached the world’s top 200.
As with the Zverevs – who share an agent, Patricio Apey, with the Tsitsipas family – tennis runs through the whole brood. Seventeen-year-old Petros plays on the Greek Davis Cup team, while Paolo, 13, and sister Elisavet, 10, are just starting out on their own journeys.
“It’s tough for Petros because he has no support,” says Tsitsipas, whose father – again, like Zverev’s father, Alexander Snr – is also his coach. “My mum is at home taking care of the other kids. There might be a change in the whole thing. We were thinking that Petros can travel with us, be a hitting partner, then play tournaments around the places I am playing.”
To counterbalance the constant focus on forehands and backhands, Tsitsipas tries to disconnect once training is over, particularly through photography.
“I bought my camera in Australia this year,” says Tsitsipas. “I did tons of research to find the best one: tutorials, teaching videos, stuff like that. I like street photography, landscapes, portraits. I am trying to master Photoshop at the moment, to make visual effects. I feel free doing it, I feel like it comes straight from the spirit.”
Creative and charismatic, this is a man with crossover potential.
Even his game, which features a lissom single-handed backhand, is easy on the eye. During a careerbest run to the Barcelona final in April, he beat three top-20 players, including French Open runner-up Dominic Thiem.
It is strange to think that, had things turned out differently in Heraklion that day, tennis fans would never have known what they were missing.
As it is, Tsitsipas is making the most of his lucky escape. Age 20
World ranking 69 Nationality US asked about the dedicated gaming room in his San Diego home.
“My go-to partner for Fortnite [the popular survival shoot-’em-up] is Kozlov,” says Fritz, in reference to the American No28 Stefan Kozlov. “I’ve gotten games with Nick Kyrgios – he is pretty solid. [Jack] Sock’s just starting out. He is not that good right now. I need to find more people to play with but I have to say I think I am the best [in the locker-room].”
Along with Fortnite, Fritz’s other favourite game is Fifa. “I was close to a professional level in Fifa last year,” he says.
This helps to explain why he keeps a signed Cristiano Ronaldo shirt above his gaming chair. He loves football and bridles at the idea that he might use the American term “soccer”.
As he explains: “I just call it football because I am a true fan. I watch every game that I can. I played a bit as a teenager, but I wasn’t that good.
“If I had to pick another sport Age 20
World ranking 62 Nationality US where I had a shot at being a pro, it would probably be baseball. I was a pretty good pitcher. Throwing a baseball is very similar to serving, the same motion.”
As a 16-year-old, Fritz started dating fellow US junior Raquel Pedraza. They married two years ago, becoming the golden couple of American tennis. Now they have a son, Jordan, who is coming up to the 18-month mark and will be attending an overseas tournament for the first time this week. “I think it’s going to be great,” says Fritz, “because I always play my best when my family is with me.”
Do his peers ever remark on the fact that he is a family man already? “I don’t think so. I feel like a lot of the time, they forget.” Perhaps because they are so busy blowing each other up on the Playstation?
To finish, I ask him about Ninja, the esport icon who earns $500,000 per month from Fortnite. “It’s funny,” Fritz replies, “because before I came here, I was just explaining to someone how he is probably one of the most famous people in the world just now. But I’d still rather meet Ronaldo.” Frances Tiafoe has one of tennis’s most distinctive voices. It is so low-pitched that it sounds almost subterranean, and he rumbles away in a deep drawl that could come out of a William Faulkner novel. When we meet, he uses that voice to describe his upbringing in the small town of College Park, Maryland.
His father, Constant – who came over from Sierra Leone in 1993 to avoid the civil war – happened to be the head of maintenance at the local tennis centre.