“Spend a week with him”: Tsitsipas hits back at doubters of head coach Mouratoglou
Stefanos Tsitsipas defended head coach Patrick Mouratoglou against his online critics. He admitted he once took the Frenchman for a marketing man and told the skeptics to spend a week on court with him.
Stefanos Tsitsipas, 2026 | © Khadim Sylla / Creafeed / Scrine
In a vibrant monologue, Stefanos Tsitsipas defended Patrick Mouratoglou against online doubts about his credentials. He admitted he too once suspected the Frenchman was mostly a marketing talent, before discovering a tennis mind “so much better than I initially thought.”
The Greek, seeded No. 7, spoke at the Almaty ATP 250 after beating Australia’s James Duckworth 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals on Friday. Mouratoglou has been Tsitsipas’s head coach since this summer, with Loïc Perrin traveling as his field coach.
The question came from the leader of the Russian-language YouTube channel Tennis Life. He told Tsitsipas that Russian-speaking viewers questioned Mouratoglou’s skills and were skeptical of his specialty. Tsitsipas said he had heard the same doubts “a lot from people before.”
“You have to understand that Patrick is not only a tennis coach, he has excelled in being a tennis coach and a quite good one, not just any tennis coach,” he said. “You don’t just win Grand Slams just by existing in a player’s box. So he definitely has the skill set and is, in my opinion, one of the best coaches in the tennis world. I don’t want to be selfish and say the best, but he would be considered among the best in our sport.”
Mouratoglou coached Serena Williams to 10 of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles.
Tsitsipas admitted that he himself had seen Mouratoglou as a marketing man at the very start of their journey together. He first worked with him in 2016 and 2017, when the Frenchman was on court with him at the Mouratoglou Academy on the French Riviera, and said he had misjudged him then.
His skill set and the way he views tennis is so much better than I initially thought. So it kind of caught me off guard.
“I never expected when I first joined that he would know so much about tennis. I knew he was certainly a very good coach, but I also believed in the beginning that it might be almost like, he’s just very good at marketing,” he said. “Like he’s very good at presenting himself and showing himself. And what I was very surprised to find out is his skill set and the way he views tennis is so much better than I initially thought. So it kind of caught me off guard.”
His advice to the skeptics was direct. “If people really want to know Patrick Mouratoglou, in my opinion, they should spend a week with him, being coached by him, and then we’ll really understand what it is being coached by him to its fullest potential,” he said. “And he keeps on surprising me every single week.”
Greek says Mouratoglou’s business career makes him a better coach. Mouratoglou runs his academy and founded the UTS Tour in 2020. Tsitsipas presented that side of him as an asset rather than a distraction.
“Patrick also happens to be a businessman, he’s not just a tennis coach. He has a lot of interest in business,” he said. “I’m a person that likes business too, so I can sort of relate to that.” He said that was rare among academy owners, who are usually “mainly involved in tennis.”
“Having a person like that who has dealt with all kinds of people, has seen all kinds of scenarios, not just on the tennis court but away from it” comes “in very handy,” he added.
Mouratoglou’s appointment ended years of Tsitsipas switching between his father and outside coaches. Apostolos Tsitsipas coached his son for most of his career. In 2023, Tsitsipas replaced him with Mark Philippoussis, then took him back within two months. In August 2024, he split from his father again and hired Goran Ivanisevic. That partnership lasted until the 2025 grass season, when Apostolos returned.
It allows me to train with a little bit more discipline, with a little bit more structure in my daily life.
In Montreal in August, after losing 7-6, 7-5 to Brazil’s Joao Fonseca, Tsitsipas said the move to Mouratoglou “should have started a long time ago.”
In Almaty he described what it had changed. “It allows me to train with a little bit more discipline, with a little bit more structure in my daily life. I feel like one thing that I lacked a little bit in the past is structure,” he said. “There wasn’t a program in place of why we’re doing certain things and why are we working towards a direction like that.”
He said the change reached into his daily routine. “I’ve become a morning person, in fact, in the last couple of months, and that was not the case with me, maybe my whole career,” he said.
Tsitsipas calls his head coach a mentor “open to learn”
Tsitsipas described a partnership built on exchange. “We have open discussions about different types of things. He has opinions. We share opinions. He respects my opinions,” he said. “He’s not a person with too many complexes and too stubborn on his methodologies, very open to learn.”
Asked later who guided him beyond tennis, he named Mouratoglou first, “even though he’s not with me on a week-to-week basis,” along with his brother Petros. “He has life experiences from everything, I feel like,” Tsitsipas said of his coach. “When you deal with so many people and important people, not just on the tennis court but away from it, I’m sure that you carry a lot of life experience and a lot of values and a lot of wisdom.”
