Tsitsipas confirms permanent split with father, hires Thomas Perrin and Patrick Mouratoglou as advisor for Wimbledon reset
Stefanos Tsitsipas has ended his coaching partnership with his father Apostolos for good ahead of Wimbledon, turning to Thomas Perrin and Patrick Mouratoglou as the former world No. 3 tries to arrest a slide to 88th in the rankings.
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Patrick Mouratoglou, 2026 | © Khadim Sylla / MTA
Stefanos Tsitsipas has parted with his father Apostolos as his coach on the eve of Wimbledon, and this time the Greek says the separation is permanent. The former world No. 3, now ranked 88th after a 16-14 season without a title, will work with Thomas Perrin from Patrick Mouratoglou’s academy, with Mouratoglou supervising the project.
Tsitsipas opens against French qualifier Hugo Gaston on Monday.
“I believe that we won’t be working together again in the future,” he said the 27-year-old. “Now I want to start making my own decisions and deciding for myself.”
The split lands at the lowest point of his career. Once world No. 3, a Grand Slam finalist and the 2019 ATP Finals champion, Tsitsipas arrives at the All England Club ranked 88th, carrying a 16-14 record for the season and without a title. He opens against French qualifier Hugo Gaston on Monday, with a potential second-round meeting with Novak Djokovic looming.
Patrick Mouratoglou’s mentorship
For the rest of the season he will work with Thomas Perrin, a long-serving coach at Patrick Mouratoglou’s academy, where Tsitsipas has trained since he was a teenager. Mouratoglou will oversee the project and join him at selected tournaments when his schedule allows, with the arrangement set to run to the end of the year and the option of continuing beyond it.
Mouratoglou had been seen on court with Tsitsipas and the Greek’s long-time physio Frédéric Lefebvre at the academy several times in June, an early sign that the new set-up was already taking shape.
Tsitsipas framed the decision less as a rupture than as a divergence of needs.
“The older I get, the more difficult it is for me to maintain a stable relationship with my father, compared to when I was a little kid, 18, 19, 20 years old,” he said. “I believe that my father needs other things, just as I need different things. I felt it in the daily energy of our collaboration.”
I believe my father has a lot to offer my other siblings and children who are up and coming. That’s where he should focus.
He was careful to separate the professional break from the personal bond, and to point his father towards a different role.
“Having my father by my side brings me comfort, but it is not the solution for me to take the next steps,” he said. “I believe my father has a lot to offer my other siblings and children who are up and coming. That’s where he should focus.”
The announcement, made to the Greek media SDNA on the eve of Wimbledon, would carry less weight had Tsitsipas not made versions of it before. He cut ties with his father once already as his ranking began to slide, brought in Goran Ivanišević for a spell that lasted under two months, then returned to the family arrangement that has defined almost his entire career.
What separates this break from the last, he says, is that he is no longer leaving the door ajar.
