'He can look at me more as an opponent': Stefanos Tsitsipas shares objectives with new coach Goran Ivanisevic

Stefanos Tsitsipas shares what he expects from his new coach, Goran Ivanisevic. The 26-year-old recently appointed the 53-year-old in the coaching role after a series of disappointing results in the recent past.

Those results pushed Tsitsipas to number 26 in the ATP men’s rankings. His most recent appearance was at the French Open, where he was knocked out after losing to Italy’s Matteo Gigante in the second round with a score of 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4. It was his 11th defeat this season in just 29 matches. It was also the fourth consecutive Grand Slam where Tsitsipas failed to get past the second round.

The Athens-born player recently spoke to the Changeover Podcast, where he explained his objectives while working with Ivanisevic. Tsitsipas stated that he wants to see Ivanisevic approach his game as an ‘opponent’. He also admitted that he is not expecting to see results improve overnight.

“The aim is to obviously see my own perspective,” said Tsitsipas. “What I can improve and things I can get better at. I feel like he is of big value because he can look at me more as an opponent and how he would want to defeat me if he was my opponent. He will definitely come up with a good solution of how we can proceed and move forward. I have faith in his abilities. I am not expecting this to be something that will start giving me titles from week one or week two. I am focusing more on the long process, like the whole journey of working with him. My goal is to see improvements and understand why I do certain things wrong. It’s not about seeing myself getting better but it is also about understanding what I am doing wrong because sometimes I feel like there is no clear vision of why its going wrong or why certain things happen. I am very solution-oriented person and I want to have a fresher eye and fresher perspective of how can I avoid mistakes and how can I proceed to improve on my mistakes instantly.”