Former WTA doubles No. 1 Pam Shriver opined that Stefanos Tsitsipas may have "hit the wall" in his battle to outperform fellow rivals Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
In an episode of the Inside-In podcast, Shriver evaluated the Greek's up-and-down 2023 season, which has yielded a few highs, but majorly modest results. Tsitsipas started the year in terrific form, reaching his second Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, and only losing to Novak Djokovic.
But a career-best start dissipated as he struggled to get any sort of momentum going during his brief stop on indoor hard courts in Europe and North America. Tsitsipas, whose sole ATP title this season came on the hard courts of Los Cabos, has won 40 matches on Tour and is grappling with at least five players to clinch the last three spots at the ATP Finals.
Tennis Channel pundit Shriver believes Tsitsipas has endured a lot of turbulence this season with major off-court activities like coaching arrangements and dating throwing him off his game. The 61-year-old adds that the 25-year-old has played the role of "chaser" this season to rivals Alcaraz and Sinner.
Talking from her own experience during her playing days when she combated a quartet of WTA legends like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, and Monica Seles - Shriver admitted it was exhausting, drawing parallels to Tsitsipas' current situation.
"A lot of turbulence. A lot of on and off-court social media posts. A lot of stuff about the coaching situation; dating (Paula Badosa). I know what it’s like to be a chaser and not quite get there. It was exhausting."
"I had about eight or nine years where I was somewhere between three and seven in the world, trying to chase down Chrissie, Martina, then Graf and Seles, and I eventually hit the wall around when I was 27-28"
"So, whether or not that’s happening to Tsitsipas now, and kind of like disheartened now, seeing the quality of Alcaraz, Sinner, and even Shelton."
Shriver also chimed in on Tsitsipas coaching setup. The American criticized Tsitsipas' decision to play carousel with Mark Phillipousis, whom he hired on two occasions, but could not keep him in the team following a spate of poor results, with the World No. 6 going back to his father.
"They’ve had like this in-and-out. So, I think if I was Philippoussis, if I was asked to go back a third time, I’d have to say, no."
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