Stefanos Tsitsipas is certainly going through the most difficult moment of his career and is not at the top of his shape even from a physical point of view, especially due to a back injury that has been tormenting him for some time.
The former world number 3 is really very far from his best level and the goals he had at the beginning of his career are very far away now, if you consider that Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have taken the lead of the men's tour and do not want to concede anything to their opponents.
If he continues to play like this, it will be impossible for the Greek player to realize his dream of winning a Grand Slam title and even the possibility of re-entering the Top 10 of the ATP ranking seems very remote.
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Tsitsipas played for 76 minutes
The winner of the 2019 ATP Finals participated in the second edition of the 'Six Kings Slam' in Saudi Arabia, but his run in Riyadh ended immediately against world number 2 Jannik Sinner who beat him without any difficulty. The champion from Athens still earned 1.5 million for participating in this event, a truly huge figure considering that he was only on the court for 76 minutes.
Through his official X profile, top analyst Jos Moron ironically commented on 'Tsitsi's participation in this competition: "Stefanos pocketed one and a half million euros for participating in the Six Kings Slam with a back injury. He was on the court for 76 minutes, which means he earned almost 20,000 euros for every minute played. This is a truly absurd figure."
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The same reasoning can also be referred to World No.3 Alexander Zverev, who played fewer minutes again against Taylor Fritz in the first quarterfinal. The German ace was defeated by the American in less than an hour, confessing that he had already felt discomfort in his shoulder during the warm-up. A fairly surreal situation that fuels the controversy around this exhibition.
