Being an individual sport, one of the truly remarkable aspects of tennis is the extreme highs and lows players experience over the course of a career, shaped by weekly results that can shift momentum in an instant.
It is not uncommon to see a player perform at an elite, almost untouchable level one week, only to fail to capitalize on that momentum and struggle to reproduce anything close to that form for the rest of the season — and sometimes the reverse is true. Every point played, won or lost, creates endless permutations of what the butterfly effect can ultimately become.
Retirement fears after injury-plagued season:
Now, former world No.3 Stefanos Tsitsipas has opened up on just how close he came to stepping away from the sport altogether the past season. Once tipped not only for global success but also as a potential heir to the fading Big Three, the Greek star admitted he seriously contemplated retirement during the 2025 offseason following a series of debilitating injury setbacks that culminated in the worst season of his career.
Speaking ahead of the United Cup, he revealed the depth of his concerns following yet another disappointing US Open defeat.
“I got really scared after the US Open loss [to Germany’s Daniel Altmaier]. I could not walk for two days. I would ask, ‘Can I play another match without pain?’ That’s when you reconsider the future of your career.”
From Slam finals to career crossroads:
Having once been a set away from winning a Major title in a final against Novak Djokovic, Tsitsipas’s trajectory has steadily declined since the first half of 2023, when he reached another major final at the Australian Open. While technical shortcomings, particularly on the return of serve and the backhand wing, have limited his progression and prevented him from becoming the player many expected him to be entering the 2020s, injuries have also played a significant role in his downturn over the past two seasons.
That decline reached its lowest point in 2025, when he dropped outside the top 30 and now faces the possibility of arriving at the first Slam of the year unseeded. Going from competing in Slam finals to struggling for seeding, all while dealing with persistent physical issues, makes it easier to understand why retirement entered the conversation — despite the Greek still being in his mid-20s.
While it is quite possible that the best of Tsitsipas is behind us, and that he may never realize his potential of becoming a Slam champion, given both his decline and the emergence of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, there is still hope that the physical struggles and injuries are now firmly behind a player who as recently as the mid-2024, captured a Masters title in Monte Carlo.
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