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AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 24, 2020

Stefanos Tsitsipas

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

M. RAONIC/S. Tsitsipas

7-5, 6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How difficult was it to play Milos? Have you ever practiced with him before and did you get a sense of what his serve is like and everything?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Yeah, I have practiced with him before one time when I was still a junior. I don't remember much.

What was the second question?

Q. How difficult is it to play him?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: It's quite difficult, you know. He's playing forehands from all over the court, and you don't really know where you should stand exactly, because he's just so fast and just turning around, hitting those forehands. Serve is great, one of the best in the game.

Kind of reminds me of a match I had with Kyrgios a few weeks ago in Brisbane. Not much going on from the baseline. Mostly serves.

I don't know. Myself, I felt a bit stupid returning his serves. I felt like I was slow. My anticipation was not there. Just, you know, it's a strange game of tennis in general.

Q. You have played a lot of tennis this month with the ATP Cup. Are you feeling healthy? Do you think you've got the right balance?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Healthy in which way?

Q. Fitness-wise. Did you play too much or are you okay?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: I'm feeling okay. I think also with my experience last year, I had burnout twice during the year, and I found kind of a balance how to manage that and sustain and play at the same level that I have been playing. So I think it all comes with experience.

My body is pretty good. I don't have anything bothering me. I only had maybe -- I think I said that last week in Brisbane, a wrist injury, which was not there today, which disappeared actually two, three days ago, which is a good sign.

Besides that, everything was good. Everything else is good.

Q. Is there anything you feel you could have done differently today to sort of...
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: No.

Q. In the third set you seemed to have a better head space, like you were more frustrated the first two sets and you stayed with him all through the third set. Do you think that approach, if you would have done it for the first two sets, it might have helped a bit?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Yeah. I have played Isner before. That's the only match I can compare it to. I played him at Wimbledon, same stuff. You have to wait for a tiebreak or play an amazing return game, which wasn't the case today.

Also, I mean, I was serving okay. Honestly, I was just serving okay. Not super great, not super bad. Maybe just in the beginning I did some double faults which I'm not used to make.

I don't know. Just such a thing, you know. You have such a great server like him and you're trying to, because you're tall, as well, you're trying to do the same as him, and then you, like, you cannot be him. He's him; you're you.

You should keep a good balance of serves and playing the rallies from the baseline, in which I was struggling. I made some technique adjustments a few months ago, and I was trying -- I was struggling to find the balance between those two.

Q. You might not want to answer this now, but you said that tennis is such a strange game.
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes.

Q. Could you reflect in what ways our sport is a strange game?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Well, you just, you know, it's one shot that you can get knocked down all the time, and you're just there, getting punched in the face with one shot. You can't do much, which in that case is the serve, serving aces T wide, on the line, so precise, so accurate, which obviously is a skill. I'm not saying it's luck. It's a skill. And the person deserves to win those points.

But sometimes you just get so monotonic, I think that's the right word to use. Just one thing all the time and if you cannot keep up with it, if you cannot catch up, you're down.

Q. Is it sometimes boring?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: Yes, it can be.

Q. Were you surprised that Milos' intensity didn't dip at all?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: I haven't played him before. I don't know how he plays against other players. I have done some analysis, some prematch -- how do you say that? Prematch studies to see how he plays.

Tiebreak, he was very, very aggressive. I was passive. Was not pressing. Yeah, he was doing a lot of damage with his forehand.

Q. After last year, the great run to the semifinals, I imagine you had high hopes coming in here. How disappointing is it to go out at this stage?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: You know, that's life. I have learned to deal with it. Last year I wasn't able to deal with it. I was heartbroken after my semifinal loss.

This year is different. I'll just keep going. I don't know. We'll win it next year. That's fine (smiling).

Q. The last time you had no breakpoints in a three-out-of-five match?
STEFANOS TSITSIPAS: I think it was against John Isner Wimbledon 2017, I think. No, '18? '18 probably. No, probably Nadal last year here. Maybe. I don't know.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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