Patrick Mouratoglou believes Stefanos Tsitsipas is ready to win a Grand Slam, saying he has what it takes to win at the French Open.
Tsitsipas, who is part of the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, has had a glorious year so far, beating Roger Federer in the last 16 at the Australian Open and also getting the better of Rafael Nadal in the semi-final of the Madrid Open.
He has been tipped as one of the players who could end the Big Three of Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic’s stranglehold on the majors.
When asked by The National, if the Greek is ready to win his first Grand Slam at Roland Garros this year, Mouratoglou replied: “I think he’s ready but I think he can still play tennis much better. Still has big room for improvement. Ready? Yes. But he’s not the only one ready, there are three others guys (Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer) that are ready too. If you want to win a Grand Slam you have to beat two of them back-to-back, over five sets, and I think this is something really difficult to achieve.
“Yes he is ready, and I know he’s ready because when he lost against Rafa in Australia, he was so disappointed. He was as disappointed as someone who has lost in the first round. That loss made him forget about everything he’s done before, like beating Roger in the fourth round. Then you know the guy is ready.
So what exactly makes Tstisipas such a great player? Mouratoglou feels it is his ability to learn from his mistakes.
“He learns from everything, he learns incredibly fast. When something like that happens, first of all he will think, ‘What should I have done?’ he will try to learn,” he said. “And second, this anger he will use it for practice, for fighting even more in the next matches. He’s going to use everything, he is using everything. That’s why he’s so good. It’s one of the reasons.
“Now can he beat the two? Yes he can beat two top-three in a row and win a Grand Slam, but it’s probably one of the most difficult things probably to do in the history of tennis because we have the three best players of the history playing at the same time. But he beat all of them already, so he can beat each of them.”
