For two hours, Stéfanos Tsitsipás (24) bowls on track 17 of the RCTB.
He does it in the presence of Apóstolos Tsitsipás, his father, the man behind the project: the project has turned Tsitsipás into the best Greek tennis player in history, there has never been another like him, because before this man appeared (and in his wake Maria Sakkari has also grown), we had hardly heard of Greek tennis, of people like Konstantinos Economidis or Eleni Danilidou, barely Top-100 tennis players.
On court 17, Tsitsipás, the tennis player who dreams of one day prevailing in Barcelona – he has played two finals at the RCTB, those of 2018 and 2021; he has lost both, always against Rafael Nadal–, he strikes behind the scenes, and perhaps out of the corner of his eye he contemplates what is happening on the annex track, 18, where Carlos Alcaraz is rallying, he has indeed won the RCTB, in 2022.
Then, Tsitsipás sits before the press.
It comes as languid, elegant and harmonious as a classical sculpture, and displays its style in a monotonous speech, without changes of register or histrionic phrases.
–What do you need to win a Grand Slam title? Or to become number 1 on the ATP circuit?
(He has lost the Wimbledon final in 2021 and the Australian Open final this winter; he is now the fifth racket in the world.)
-I think it's my thing, and also the others.
– What do you mean?
–I have had finals in which my rivals beat me because I did not find my serve. I must confess that I wish I had believed in myself more at some point in the past. I should have believed who she was and where she was. I had not arrived fresh, rested, to those finals, and that had prevented me from being more precise. I think I'm very close to getting a title like that, but I have to keep working in the same vein to get back to those finals and fight for them.
"But now Carlos Alcaraz appears and he won't make it easy for him," they tell him.
Tsitsipás frowns.
Well, Alcaraz (19), the teenager who hours before had been rallying with Roberto Bautista on the adjacent court, is a problem of the first magnitude: he is the tennis player who has made the Next Gen a filling for the sandwich.
(This Next Gen of Tsitsipás, Medvedev, Zverev or Tiafoe has been bottled between the imperial Big Three and the generation led by Alcaraz).
–Well, Alcaraz has arrived, but also Sinner, right? –replies the Greek.
"Tell us about Alcaraz," he proposes.
–Alcaraz is a problem. Of course it is. And I adore difficulties, there can be no greater pleasure than overcoming all setbacks.
–But you want to win in Barcelona, whatever it is...
(In last year's edition, the Murcian talent had defeated Tsitsipás in the quarterfinals).
–Honestly, I don't forget last year's marathon, when the rain made everything difficult and I spent a couple of days on and off the track. But it seems good to me. I don't want it to be easy. I want the maximum challenges. Because, the more difficulties, the more you give. The easier it is, the less I will yield.
–There are those who say that the future lies in the rivalry between Alcaraz and Sinner (20). What do you think?
–I understand that the rivalry between them is a correct reflection, because they are practically the same age and they are creating a career that the fans adore. For me, the rivalry goes through another path, due to the fact of moving forward with myself. I have faced, and I continue to do so, with Rublev or Kyrgios, and now I also do it with Alcaraz and Sinner. Let's see, the circuit is in a phase of change. In a very short time we are going to have a lot of tennis players fighting for the major titles.
– Do you think that Sinner (the Italian is also in Barcelona; he will debut tomorrow) is going to be a decisive player?
–Sinner has improved a lot, compared to what he was three years ago. He has worked very hard to get here, I'm sure. Today he is much more consistent and responsible, look at him and he will see that he has achieved incredible things. He has grown to the level of his desire, and that is why he is achieving all of this. And he needs to make that leap, we all need it, because the intensity of the sport is increasing. And great tennis players are coming, especially now that Federer is not here and Nadal is in his fall.
– What is the difference between that tennis and the current one?
–People arrive who move in an impossible way, and things happen that you don't imagine are going to happen. So I just have to think about how to improve my game to get there.
(Tsitsipás will debut this kid against the winner of the Cachín-Brouwer duel, which will take place this afternoon on track 2).
