Stefanos Tsitsipas dealt with a lot of back problems recently, and to counter that, he changed his service motion.
Back issues are nothing new for tennis players because most of them experience them sooner or later. It’s the same for non-tennis players, but for most of people, it comes a bit later than for tennis players.
For the Greek player, it can become a serious issue. We saw with Anett Kontaveit how serious it can be because she had to abandon her career because of it.
For Tsitsipas, back issues started only recently. He didn’t really have many issues with it before, but it did start to bother him quite a bit more recently. The ATP Finals withdrawal was the result of back issues, and that paints a clear picture of how significant the problem was.
To counter that, Tsitsipas resorted to what many tennis players ultimately do: making tweaks in their game. For him, it meant changing his service motion a bit, which he did, and according to his most recent interview with Tennis TV, it helped a lot.
“I was struggling with back issues, and switching to that serving motion helped me a lot, release tension from my back and feel much more comfortable in my motion, and it also improve some things on my serve that I struggled with previously.”
To say that his play suffered due to the back issues would be an understatement. He struggled greatly, so much so that he left the Top 10 this year, which seemed unthinkable a year ago. He’s looking healthy and motivated this year, so we should expect him to bounce back pretty quickly.
He made a good start in Acapulco at the Mexican Open, but he’ll need to follow up with a few more wins to really start feeling confident again.
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