Stefanos Tsitsipas survived the harshness of bullying thanks to tennis.
His mother, former Greek-Russian tennis player Julia Salnikova, revealed in an interview on Greek television that the former world number three was subjected to physical violence at school by a small group of his peers.
“Stefanos was a very quiet and shy boy. His classmates, you can’t call them friends, treated him very badly. He used to play football, but finally he decided to play tennis and because of the sport he skipped a lot of classes. There were two or three kids in his class who beat him up quite a bit,‘ she told ANT1’s “Proino” TV show.
Salnikova, a former 194th-ranked player, explained that tennis was her son’s escape from school trauma: “It wasn’t easy for him, but he got through that stage because he had tennis in his head. His mind was telling him that he had to get through it and that helped him a lot”.
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In addition, Salnikova addressed Tsistipas’ turbulent relationship with his father. Apostolos Tsitsipas was the Australian Open 2019 runner-up coach until this August, when the tennis player opted to remove him from that technical role to keep him in his role as a father, as well as relegating him to keep working with the team off the court.
“He is a professional, and although he loves his father very much, he understands that he needs to find another coach. Ever since he lost at the 2020 US Open, Apostolos and I talked about Stefanos changing coaches. But four years passed and Stefanos was getting good results,’ she said.
‘However, I think Stefanos and Apostolos didn’t have a good relationship since then, they had constant conflicts. And that’s why Stefanos made the decision to change coach…. We don’t see it as a tragedy. We are a very close family. Apostolos, as a coach, was very involved in Stefanos‘ work and I didn’t see that he was pushing him,” said the three-time ITF champion.
Tsitsipas has had a 2024 season far from the average results he has been sustaining for the last five years. While his third Monte Carlo Masters 1000 title stands out in his trophy cabinet, he did not fight for final rounds in Grand Slams and suffered unexpected defeats.
Finally, Salnikova spoke about Paula Badosa and the relationship the Spaniard has with her son: “Stefanos is happy to be with Paula again and that’s the most important thing. If he is happy, I will be happy too. There was a difficult period when they were separated, I was by Paula’s side, we talked and that’s how they got back together”.
