By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday March 9, 2025
Indian Wells, California – Stefanos Tsitsipas was playing poorly and not finding ways to channel the advances he was making on the practice court into his matches. He had to do something about it – so he did.
After his title in Dubai last month – his first on a hardcourt since 2023 – he posted a quote on social media: “They said my game was sinking so I got myself a boat.”
More: Tsitsipas Talks About New Racquet After Dubai Triumph
Asked to elaborate on that statement on Sunday, he talked about his struggles to reporters in the BNP Paribas Open main press room.
“The last few months weren’t amazing for me,” he told reporters after his 6-3, 6-3 takeout of Matteo Berrettini on Sunday at Indian Wells. “I didn’t have any big results or victories that I could say that I’m headed towards a good direction with my game. So I feel like that caption sort of was a summary of the last few months.”
Tsitsipas is always quick to post a humorous quote on his X account, so some of the things he says can be taken with a grain of salt, but this one rings true for the Greek. He was out of sorts with his game, and struggling to find his footing again after dropping out of the Top 10.
“I just like a little bit of that humor like that. Doesn’t hurt,” he said.
It’s no secret that Tsitsipas has recently started using a new racquet. Without naming names – it is still a blacked-out frame he touts – he pointed to the reasons for the change without actually mentioning the change during his press conference.
“I was trying to find ways to improve,” he said. “I feel like some of my opponents that I got to play were overpowering me and doing things much better than me when it came to playing bigger tennis. My entire career I’ve been known to be able to play big tennis but it wasn’t big enough, and I felt like I had to do something about it.”
Reportedly his new racquet has a 16” x 20” string pattern, which gives him both more spin potential and more power. Some reporters say that Tsitsipas’ groundstrokes have been close to 5 MPH higher than they were prior to the shift.
“A lot is going on with my racquet,” he told Tennis Channel on Sunday with a laugh. “Things that I can also not disclose yet.”
He may not be willing to talk about a specific brand and model, but Tsitsipas makes the perfect sales pitch for whatever racquet he is playing with now as he discusses what the mystery weapon is doing for his game.
“I feel like there is a notch that I’ve added to my game in terms of speed, in terms of RPMs, in terms of power,” he says. “There is an upgrade to my tennis, which keeps adding to my confidence, because I feel like I can hit shots now that I couldn’t before.”
Tsitsipas says he feels like he has a bigger sweet spot, and it helps him on the return.
“I feel like I can return without having to get the ball right in the middle of the racquet, so even if I miss by a little, I still get a very decent return,” he said. “Knowing that I can hit harder, knowing that I can keep finding my spots the way I did before, but having more under it is definitely a very satisfying feeling.”
On Sunday at Indian Wells Tsitsipas was assertive from start to finish. He dropped just eight points on serve and cleaned up most points with serve-plus-one. He’s clearly a more confident player than he was a month ago, before the new racquet and the new strings.
“It felt like I wasn’t able to go out on the court and really do that to the level that I was doing it in practice,” Tsitsipas said. “I was playing practice sets, and I was playing really well. I was winning a lot of the practice sets against good opponents. It’s just that it didn’t click when it came to the match, and I had to wait a little longer for that.
“With a few more changes that I added to my game I felt like it added a lot of confidence stepping out onto the tennis court.”
