Rafael Nadal shows you that anyone can do it but Roger Federer's precision is difficult to duplicate, says Stefanos Tsitsipas
Stefanos Tsitsipas recently stated that Rafael Nadal embodies hard work leading to success, while Roger Federer's precision is incredibly challenging to replicate.
Stefanos Tsitsipas secured a spot in the third round of the 2023 French Open with a victory over Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena on Wednesday. The former Roland-Garros finalist triumphed 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-2 over the Spaniard in over two hours.
Stefanos Tsitsipas was asked about the complexity and simplicity of tennis in his post-match press conference. He mentioned that playing effortless tennis like Roger Federer is not relatable to most players, as it is a difficult task to achieve.
"These are some of the things that I want to focus on, because it's beautiful when you can play with ease and just hit incredible winners, just come to the net, approach, win points like this, serve aces, hit incredible returns, makes tennis ecstatic, makes tennis, like, this is just so damn easy, just like Roger makes it seem sometimes in the past." Tsitsipas said.
"Which is not relatable to most people of how they're trying to play because it's not an easy task to do that," he added.
Tsitsipas also shortly mentioned reading Rafael Nadal's book and how the Spaniard's journey inspires others. He claimed that Nadal shows that anyone can achieve success with hard work while acknowledging the challenge of replicating Federer's precision on the court.
"In that regard I want to say that having asked that question, I thought about it the other day, and I had a little bit of a read of Rafa's book of how Rafa relates to a lot of players because of he kind of shows you that anyone can do it, and I think that's a great example right there, you know. Now, on the other instance, Federer's precision is kind of difficult to duplicate or replicate in a way," Stefanos Tsitsipas said.
"It's a great satisfaction to be seeing those stats" - Stefanos Tsitsipas
Stefanos Tsitsipas reached a milestone by securing his 50th Grand Slam match win during the first round of the 2023 French Open. His subsequent victory over Roberto Carballes Baena in the second round then marked his 20th-match win in the clay court Major.
In view of this, the Greek expressed his satisfaction and acknowledged the hard work behind these statistics. He added that he sometimes finds it difficult to comprehend how quickly it all happened.
"I am very much in when it comes to breaking records. I get excited when I see personal records being kind of set and broken. Of course it's a great satisfaction to be seeing those stats, because there is so much work behind it, and sometimes it's difficult to grasp the fact that it all happened so quickly," Stefanos Tsitsipas said.
Tsitsipas then insisted on his goal to keep progressing, staying healthy, and surpassing both personal and groundbreaking records in tennis. This includes some memorable achievements like his service record in the 2023 Madrid Open.
"I just wish to keep on going. I wish to be healthy and to be fighting for more titles and breaking personal records but also records that haven't been set before in tennis, like that serve thing that happened in Madrid was quite cool, actually. I never thought about it. It just happened. I wish to be kind of I think few things like this too (smiling)," he said.