Dreams, social media and mixed doubles: Badosa and Tsitsipas, the new tennis team
LONDON – In May 2022, Paula Badosa announced that she was running away from social media to take care of her mental health. In July 2023, the Spaniard cannot stop uploading and sharing photos and videos with her boyfriend Stefanos Tsitsipas: “It has already become very public, it is better to normalize the situation. We started with the joke, and then came the Instagram account.”
Badosa and Tsitsipas: Tsitsidosa
The account @Tsitsidosa was not created by a fan, but by the new couple on tour. The profile reads, “Best friends & soul mates. Nothing less; nothing more.💚 @paulabadosa @stefanostsitsipas98”. They share there photos together and comment from their personal accounts.
Last year at Roland Garros 2022, Badosa felt that the virtual platforms added a lot of pressure to herself, but she had to keep them open because of commitments to her sponsors. As different as night and day. “Honestly, I handle all the expectations, all the press, much better. Today it affects me zero, and a year ago it affected me a lot. My condition depended on that. Many people in my environment helped me to know how to deal with it,” the Spaniard told CLAY during the press conference among the Spanish-speaking media.
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Everything is very normal, clarifies Badosa. “Two 25-year-olds who fall in love. That happens every day, what happens is that being elite athletes makes it bigger,” she says. Like Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert in the 70s; Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi in the late 90s; Gael Monfils and Elena Svitolina in the late 2010s.
What is not normal, is that in these times a top 5 singles player signs in the other two draws of a Grand Slam. But for the Greek Tsitsipas, there is a family affair in the men’s doubles with his brother Petros. And in the mixed is the commitment with his girlfriend. Very, very important.
Badosa, a former world No. 2 and current world No. 35 of the WTA, hesitated to come to Wimbledon after missing the French Open due to a fracture in one of her vertebras. Was her boyfriend a motivation for forcing coming to Wimbedon without much preparation? “I would have come anyway. But since I can be here, I learn a lot by being around him. He is one of the best in the world. He helps me grow as a professional and as a person,” said the Spaniard. Finally, she had to withdraw from his second round match, and also, for the mixed doubles.
Badosa and Tsitsipas : The greek found out during his interview on court about Badosa’s R1 result
The 2021 Indian Wells champion won in the opener while Tsitsipas battled Dominic Thiem on Court 2. Once she finished her post-match routine, she came running to the stadium located at the south end of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. She caught up to cheer him on at the end of the final set. He would win in the super tiebreaker.
In the on-court interview, Tsitsipas realized his girlfriend’s result: “She won? I just found out, congratulations!”. Badosa responded by making a heart with her hands.
And what about the mixed doubles? “It makes me very happy to share the court with people I love very much. Paulita, let’s do it!” exclaimed Tsitsipas.
In an interview with Greek journalist Vicky Georgatou for SDNA , Tsitsipas gave more context on the relationship: “Since I saw her on TV in Australia 2020 I liked her very much. It all started in Rome, I sent her a message after she won a match. She was a fan of mine from before, and I was a fan of hers. It was fate, but I won’t go into details, it would take me an hour. Let Paula tell it.”
At the press conference, The Guardian’s journalist Tumaini Carayol took it upon himself to pass the buck to Badosa: “Stefanos says you have a better side of the story.”
“Well, yes, I had a dream,” recounts the Spaniard: “I dreamt that we both won the Australian Open. And that afterwards we had a very romantic moment, but I’m not going to explain that, I’ll leave it there.” There was laughter in the small conference room at Wimbledon.
The question is whether a relationship as intense as the one shown by Badosa and Tsitsipas, will not affect his tennis performance. “Tennis is both’s daily life. Our job. With Paula we have made it very clear: sport will be our number one priority. We will be there to support each other and live the dream together. We want to win a Grand Slam”.
