Tsitsipas Makes Late Schedule Change After Australian Open Disappointment
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Stefanos Tsitsipas will try to kickstart his 2025 ATP season at the Rotterdam Open after accepting a late wild card to appear at the tournament.
Next week's ATP 500 event in Rotterdam was dealt a significant blow when the Australian Open champion and world No. 1 Jannik Sinner withdrew after his efforts to win a second title in Melbourne.
While Sinner's decision was understandable and unsurprising, tournament organizers undoubtedly wanted to find someone to fill at least some of the void left by the Italian's move to pull out.
The announcement of Tsitsipas' involvement achieved this. Tournament director Richard Krajicek made a statement about it that included his past achievements at the Rotterdam Open.
"We are happy that we can add this crowd favourite to the field of players. Stefanos Tsitsipas is a regular at home. He made his debut at the highest level here at the age of eighteen and is now playing in Rotterdam for the seventh time. After having reached the semi-finals and finals before, he could easily win the title this time."
Tsitsipas is closely connected to the event after being given a wild card in 2017 when he was ranked outside the Top 200. Krajicek said the move fitted with their policy of giving young players a chance, which they did with Roger Federer many years ago.
"He fitted in with our policy of giving young talented players a wildcard, as we did before with Roger Federer, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Grigor Dimitrov."
The Rotterdam Open was able to add Tsitsipas to the entry list despite using its three wild cards because of a mechanism called an A+ wild card that is given to every ATP 500 tournament.
If the opportunity arises, an A+ wild card allows events to add a player from the Top 30 at the last minute. Each ATP 500 tournament has one of these, and Krajicek is happy the Rotterdam Open used it to secure Tsitsipas' involvement.
"Stefanos Tsitsipas was of course high on our list of players we would still like to bring to Rotterdam. We are very pleased that we can now make use of this arrangement."
Tsitsipas will play just his second match of 2025 in Rotterdam. The Greek No. 1 decided not to play in any of the warmup tournaments before the season's opening Grand Slam, the Australian Open.
His sole match so far in 2025 was an opening-round Australian Open loss to Alex Michelsen. Although the young American was a challenging draw for Tsitsipas, the 2023 runner-up losing so early still came as a surprise.
Tsitsipas cannot fully replace Sinner, but adding him is still one of the best substitutes the tournament could find. Fans in Rotterdam will also get to enjoy watching Carlos Alcaraz, who is now the No. 1 seed after Sinner's withdrawal.
Alcaraz, who lost to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open quarterfinal, usually plays on clay in February in Buenos Aires and Rio. However, the Spaniard and his team decided to switch to Rotterdam after he sustained an injury in Rio last year.
