Tsitsipas says coaching change should have come sooner, wishes his father were more like Shelton’s

Stefanos Tsitsipas said his latest coaching overhaul, built around field coach Thomas Perrin with Patrick Mouratoglou supervising, was a step he should have taken long ago, speaking after his 7-6, 7-5 loss to Joao Fonseca at the National Bank Open in Montreal.

The change, made permanent ahead of Wimbledon this year, is the clearest break yet in a coaching history that has cycled repeatedly around his father, Apostolos.

Tsitsipas first split with his father in 2023, hiring Mark Philippoussis, only to reunite with Apostolos within two months. A second split followed in August 2024, leading to a brief stint with Goran Ivanisevic through the 2025 Halle Open and Wimbledon, before Tsitsipas again brought his father back into the role.

This time, he has framed the move away from Apostolos as final, with Perrin and Mouratoglou in place through the end of the year.

I guess I was too patient with my time and too nice with handling certain things.

Asked whether the new setup felt like a fresh chapter, Tsitsipas did not hesitate to admit the delay had been his own doing. “It’s a chapter that should have started a long time ago,” he said. “I guess I was too patient with my time and too nice with handling certain things, to take so much time to proceed with the change. But it’s how life works. Certain things come at a certain time. I’m very Buddhist in that sort of philosophy. So now we are here, and we are doing it the way I like it.”

He described Perrin, Mouratoglou and Mouratoglou Academy staff members as figures he trusts fully. “These are the people that have been with me since day one, people that believe in the academy, people that want the best for me, and that’s the most important, working with those that will bleed for you.”

Shelton and Zverev

The conversation turned to fathers coaching their sons on tour, a dynamic Tsitsipas lived with for most of his career before this year’s split. Asked to name current examples, he counted them out loud, landing on Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton as the clearest cases. “There aren’t a lot of players that are coached by their father, to be honest, especially today,” he said.

“If I was to count them, there would probably be three, or maximum four. Not that many.” Pressed further on who else might qualify, he ruled out both Carlos Alcaraz and Felix Auger-Aliassime as not truly fitting the description, settling on Zverev and Shelton as the standard-bearers.

It was Shelton’s relationship with his father and coach, Bryan, a former ATP pro himself, that drew Tsitsipas’s most personal reflection. “Sometimes I actually wish, to be honest, I see Shelton’s father. He’s an example to me of how a father should be around his child playing competitive tennis,” he said.

I am a big fan of Shelton. I am a big fan of his father and the way their dynamic works.

“Like he’s the perfect example, and I see him, and I’m sometimes wishing things were like that, but unfortunately they aren’t. I am a big fan of Shelton. I am a big fan of his father and the way their dynamic works. So I see it as a great example.”

Coming from a player who has spent much of his career oscillating between his father and outside coaches, only to return to Apostolos each time, the comment reads less like idle praise and more like a quiet accounting of what that relationship has cost him. For now, at least, Tsitsipas insists this chapter is different – built, in his words, around people who will “bleed” for him, rather than blood alone.