Stefanos Tsitsipas plays tennis the old way, a one-handed backhand and a full-blooded charge to the net, and for a while he looked like the future. At 21 he won the 2019 ATP Finals, the youngest champion of the season-ending event since Lleyton Hewitt in 2001, outlasting Dominic Thiem in a final-set tiebreak. By August 2021 he was world No. 3, the highest ranking any Greek player has held, and he has gathered 14 career titles.
The majors are the wound. In the 2021 Roland Garros final he led Novak Djokovic by two sets and lost in five, the first two-set lead Djokovic had ever overturned in a slam final. Djokovic beat him again in the 2023 Australian Open final, with the world No. 1 ranking riding on the result. Since then the slide has been steep: a back injury broke up his 2025 season, and by mid-2026 his ranking had sunk to its lowest point since early 2018. The talent was never the question. The climb back is.
Thirty-three. That is how many places Nikoloz Basilashvili climbed in the new ATP rankings, from No. 128 to No. 95, a 34-year-old who began the week in qualifying and ends it back inside the top 100. Tallon Griekspoor and Jan Lennard Struff both moved into the top 50 on the same indoor swing.
Ranking taleTwo. That is how many Almaty titles Daniil Medvedev now owns, both in a row. He beat Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-7 6-1 6-3 on Sunday to defend the title he won in 2025, after losing the opening set in a tiebreak.
Match tale