Stefanos Tsitsipas acknowledged that Roger Federer was pretty much “unstoppable” during his prime. Tsitsipas, 24, was just making his first tennis steps when Federer was dominating the game. Federer, 41, retired from tennis in late September at the Laver Cup.
Federer, a former 20-time Grand Slam champion, is widely considered to be one of the greatest players in tennis history. There is one stat that shows the best how dominant Federer was during his prime – to this day the Swiss is the only male player ever to have won two Grand Slams for five consecutive years.
Federer captured five consecutive Wimbledon titles between 2003 and 2007, while he made it all the way at the US Open for five consecutive years between 2004 and 2008.
Tsitsipas: Federer was kind of unstoppable
“Roger’s best years, you know, he was kind of unstoppable.
It seemed so going forwards. He said, I remember, many years ago that ‘if you don’t improve and if you don’t change something in a positive way, the opponents are gonna kind of find out what you are doing and what You’ve been doing is not anymore as efficient as it was before.
So, you always got to think forward, you always gotta be progressive in your mindset.’ And that’s what he has been doing so well for so many years,” Tsitsipas told the Diriyah Tennis Cup. Tsitsipas clashed against Federer four times while the Swiss was still active.
In the 2019 Australian Open round-of-16, Tsitsipas stunned Federer in their first meeting. That same year Tsitsipas and Federer clashed two more times – Tsitsipas defeated Federer at the ATP Finals while the Swiss claimed wins in Dubai and Basel.
Meanwhile, Tsitsipas is preparing for the Diriyah Tennis Cup in Saudi Arabia. Between 08-10 December, Tsitsipas will be competing in Riyadh for the first time in his career.