“A break sort of changed the whole momentum” – Tsitsipas and Fils on the game that decided it

Arthur Fils was a set up and serving at 5-2, two games from a two-set lead over a player he had beaten five times out of five. Stefanos Tsitsipas won 4-6, 7-6, 6-1, 6-4, and afterwards both men were asked what happened in that game. Neither offered the other’s answer.

The Greek held for 3-5, broke back, forced the tiebreak and took it 7-3. He lost four games across the next two sets combined, winning the third 6-1 and the fourth 6-4.

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attack, and a few free points

Tsitsipas, ranked No. 53 and a former World No. 3, said he had expected nothing from the position.

“At this point, nothing can go worse, to be honest,” he said. “It would be a lie to say that I was expecting a break. I was just trying to play point after point and not think too much of what the outcome might be.”

What he then described was a deliberate change of court position. “I got a few points here and there, like maybe double faults, as far as I remember. I stepped in, took the ball early, started attacking a little bit more. He was caught on the back foot a few times. A break sort of changed the whole momentum of the match.”

The belief followed the result rather than preceding it. “I wasn’t sure of how good my level was in that particular moment, but when that break happened, I have every reason to believe that I’ve got a chance now.”

Fils: the energy went, and he cannot say why

The 21-year-old Frenchman’s account contains no mention of his opponent stepping in, and no mention of the double faults.

“I don’t really know. I don’t have the answer,” Fils said. “But once the energy went down at the end of the second, and I never felt again a good energy. I have to talk with my team, but at my level, to do such a mistake is almost unprofessional.”

He was then offered three explanations by reporters and turned down all of them. The pressure of arriving as a Masters 1000 champion: “If I had any pressure, I think I would have start the match pretty bad. But I felt okay. I felt relaxed.” The length of the North American swing, after a deep run in Montreal and the title in Cincinnati: “Of course it’s a very long swing, but no, no excuse. I just have to work way harder to be able to play those kind of tournaments.” A physical problem, when asked directly whether his hip and back were fine: “Everything perfect.”

“At 5-3 I switched off”, he added in French. “I messed up my service game a bit, and actually completely. Double faults. No panic, but I didn’t understand what was happening. He opened up angles and played better than me.”

He did break back early in the fourth set, and could not build on it. “I was trying to find a way, but not accurate enough on the serve,” Fils said. “The ball was not going very well out of my racquet. So it was tough. Even if I was fighting, was tough.”

What had changed for Tsitsipas

The Greek’s version of the match is inseparable from a summer of changes he detailed at length. He has been working with Patrick Mouratoglou again since June, with Thomas Perrin as his daily coach, an arrangement that ended a working relationship with his father and produced a title at the Gstaad ATP 250 in July. He described what he had been looking for as quiet.

“I needed a different voice. I needed someone that provides a little bit more calm into my tennis world,” Tsitsipas said. “There was a lot of chaos surrounding me before and a lot of noise.”

Twelve months ago in the same building he had been unable to walk properly for two days after losing, and spent weeks in doubt afterwards. Asked about it on Monday, he said he had forgotten it entirely until the question came.

That context makes the final game the tell. “I actually was very calm in that last game, like, very calm,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking too much of what the outcome might be in a few points from there. It was a refreshing feeling to see that ace come out of my racquet.”