Watch: Stefanos Tsitsipas fine-tunes his backhand ahead of opening match in Paris
World No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas spent some time sharpening his backhand ahead of his opening match at the Paris Masters. In a video doing the rounds on social media, the Greek was seen performing backhand drills in practice.
Tsitsipas' backhand is easily the weakest shot of his game and has played a part in his early exits in the last few tournaments. The 23-year-old reached the semifinals at the Cincinnati Masters in August, but has since failed to reach the last eight in his past three tour-level events.
He will hope to turn his fortunes around at the Paris Masters, the final Masters 1000 event of the season.
You can watch the clip of Stefanos Tsitsipas practicing his backhand below:
More of Stefanos yesterday, working on his backhand.
#PameStef 🇬🇷 #RolexParisMasters 🇫🇷 https://t.co/wQjmredpnN
Tsitsipas and his father-cum-coach Apostolos Tsitsipas also indulged in a one-on-one hitting session later on.
The content you didn’t know you needed, Apo hitting 🙌 with Stef getting treatment from Jérôme in the background 😥 https://t.co/yVWAHN9o2e
Tsitsipas, who has never been beyond the quarterfinals at the Paris Masters, has had some intense hitting sessions with his peers, including Aslan Karatsev, Ilya Ivashka and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, this week.
The Greek will team up with Qureshi to play doubles at the Paris Masters. On Monday, the two were involved in a hard-hitting practice session, where the Pakistani doubles ace kept Tsitsipas on his toes with some well-timed volleys.
Stef practicing with Aisam!💥👊😍
via karanrastogitennis IG https://t.co/eSDcXlD3ku
Stefanos Tsitsipas starts doubles campaign on Tuesday, singles on Wednesday
Stefanos Tsitsipas will be seen in action at this year's Paris Masters for the first time on Tuesday, in doubles. Tsitsipas and Qureshi will face off against the all-French combine of Arthur Rinderknech and Benjamin Bonzi for a spot in the second round.
This isn't the first time Tsitsipas and Qureshi have joined forces at the Paris Masters. The two played together in the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Masters 1000 event, with their best performance being a run to the last-16 three years ago.
Tsitsipas will open his singles campaign on Wednesday against the winner of the all-Australian first-round match between World No. 32 Alex de Minaur and lucky loser Alexei Popyrin. Popyrin entered the main draw after the 33rd-ranked Lloyd Harris withdrew on Tuesday.
Stefanos will play the winner of de Minaur-Popyrin as Harris withdrew! twitter.com/EntryLists/sta…