The pressure Tsitsipas puts on himself plays against him – The Eye of the Coach #22

Patrick Mouratoglou believes that Stefanos Tsitsipas‘s problem on the biggest stages is that he wants to win too badly.

“I think he puts a lot of pressure on his shoulders,” said the Frenchman. “He wants it too bad. And in a way, it plays a bit against him on those tournaments.”

The Greek star’s latest disappointment came at the US Open where he squandered six match points and lost in five sets to Borna Coric in the third round. That’s the same stage at which he was eliminated from the Australian Open back in January, when Milos Raonic beat him in straight sets.

“He is a very ambitious player,” Mouratoglou said. “He really believes in himself a lot. He respects all the players, but he thinks he’s good enough to beat everybody, which is one of the trademarks of the best. And actually, he beat all of them. He beat Rafa on clay, beat Novak in a Masters 1000. He beat Roger in a grand slam. So he’s beaten all of them in big occasions. But the truth is, for the moment, except his semi-final at the Australian Open (in 2019), where he lost to Rafael Nadal), the results in Grand Slams are disappointing.”

“His game plan is a bit confused at times”

In fact, apart from that semi-final, Tsitsipas has never been beyond the fourth round at any slam. Mouratoglou thinks he needs to adjust his game plan to handle pressure better.

“His game plan is a bit confused at times, and especially on those [big] matches,” he said. “If things are more clear in his mind and more solid in his game, I think even though the pressure is here, he’s got to deal with it better. He’s a very complete player. He can do a lot of things with his game and he has a lot of options, but sometimes he’s getting confused. think when the pressure is big, it creates confusion. And confusion brings hesitation. Hesitation brings mistakes. Mistakes bring doubts. And then trouble starts.”