Future is bright
Young gun Tsitsipas claims ATP Finals title
Tennis saw the future yesterday at the O2 Arena, and it worked. In a thrilling finale, a capacity crowd chanted the surname of Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 21-year-old Greek who last night became the youngest winner of the ATP Finals since Lleyton Hewitt in 2001.
With a wild mop of curly hair and a passing resemblance to Errol Flynn, Tsitsipas is the most charismatic of the new breed of tennis challengers. He looks less like an athlete than an artist or thespian – perhaps a young actor auditioning for a role as Robin Hood.
Happily, that romantic appearance is matched by a varied and colourful game style, based on the Roger Federer model. With his one-handed backhand, his deft hands at the net and his supreme athleticism, Tsitsipas will go into January’s Australian Open as a serious threat for the title.
However last night’s final turned out, we were always going to see a first-time champion of the ATP Finals, bringing an unexpected end to another year of dominance by the Big Three. Tsitsipas’s opponent, 26-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem, had been hitting the ball with thrilling intensity and power all week.
Tennis returned to its roots in this battle of the one-handers – the first time we have seen two players with single-armed backhands contest the final of this event since Federer took out James Blake in 2006.
The received wisdom suggests that a “twoey” will always be stronger and more reliable than a “oney”, which is why Novak Djokovic is a more common role model for developmental coaches than Federer. But the two halves of “Thiemsipas” made this most demanding of shots look easy.
Ultimately, it was Tsitsipas’s greater solidity – which derives partly from a little extra top spin on that glamorous backhand – which carried him across the line. He was a break up in the decider, before being dragged back to level terms and forced to contest a tie-break.
But Thiem had a problem. He had to play the more ambitious tennis, to floor the accelerator, because he was being outlasted in the longer rallies. In the end, a couple of wild forehands failed to find their mark, and Tsitsipas was home by a 6-7, 6-2, 7-6 margin.
“We played an unbelievable final,” a gracious Thiem said afterwards. “We are playing the most brutal sport which exists, it was so close. Both were fighting 100 per cent to the end. Stefanos, you really deserve this, you are an amazing player. I hope we will have some great finals in the future.”
This was the first time that the ATP Finals had ended in such a fresh-faced match-up since Federer took out Hewitt in 2004. And just as Federer’s win that day offered a harbinger of the decade that followed, so it would be easy to see
Tsitsipas as tennis’s next superstar. But we have to be careful here. We were making grand predictions about Grigor Dimitrov when he won the ATP Finals in 2017, and then made the same mistake when Alexander Zverev triumphed last year. In both cases, they then suffered a miserable follow-up season, just when everybody thought they were going to challenge for majors.
In Tsitsipas’s case, though, it feels as if it would take a significant injury to halt his momentum now. On top of the many virtues of his game, he has a laser-like focus at the big moments.
In Saturday’s semi-final, in which he delivered a statement win over Federer, he saved 11 of 12 break points. In his own acceptance speech, Tsitsipas congratulated
Thiem, whom he described as an inspiration, and then admitted that “it has been a roller-coaster [this week]. Holding this trophy feels amazing. This tournament was just unbelievable. You guys [the fans] made it so emotional.
“I have never received so much support on a stage like that. Never. Never. Honestly, I owe it all to you. The atmosphere was unbelievable.”
One mercy for these two warriors is that neither Greece nor Austria are participating in this week’s Davis Cup finals.
Both men can now say that their seasons are finished, and reconvene in Australia on Jan 3 for the ATP Cup.
It is still a quick turnaround, but not as short as it will be for the likes of Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.