Stefanos Tsitsipas opens up on Ivanisevic partnership that 'should've happened years ago'

Stefanos Tsitsipas has given an honest look into his new coaching partnership with Goran Ivanisevic. The former world No. 3 spent years working with his dad before they finally ended their on-and-off working relationship last summer. Now, Tsitsipas has enlisted Ivanisevic, and he admitted: "I've wasted time."

The 26-year-old sounds like a man reborn since bringing the former Wimbledon champion into his team and says they're starting from scratch, even though he believes their partnership should have happened years ago.

"It's been great. I mean, he's a great human being and I feel like our relationship, honestly, has strengthened and become much better than what I would have expected it to be, and I see him as a person that can be by my side and we can build a great relationship with him," he said of their blockbuster link-up after losing to Tomas Etcheverry at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic exhibition on Friday,

"So I will obviously focus on the training and and all of the procedures that are necessary for me to improve, and I'll make sure to get to know him better, be curious around him, and ask him advice outside of all the tennis court, too, because I feel like he can help me with so much experience that he has gained over the course of his career. He can transfer that to me, and he can help me rebuild my mindset as a player."

Tsitsipas' turbulent past coaching relationship with his father Apostolos has been well documented, and the 26-year-old has confessed that he should have turned to someone like Ivanisevic sooner.

He continued: "It could have definitely happened earlier, to be honest. But I learned from those things. Okay, yes, it could have happened then, but it happened now, so it doesn't matter anymore.

"I could have benefited having Goran maybe three, four years ago. And he could have taught me the valuable things that I'm learning today, maybe a little bit earlier. But that thing doesn't matter. I'm just hypothesising right now.

"I feel like, yeah, I've wasted time of maybe not feeling like I've grown as a player and I feel like I've been practising the same methods, same things for years and years and years."

It hasn't all been perfect with Ivanisevic, but Tsitsipas appreciates the former No. 2's honest coaching style. And after dropping outside of the world's top 20 for the first time since 2018, their partnership came at the perfect time for the Greek ace.

"I'm at a stage of my life and my career where I want something refreshing, I want something new, I want something exciting, I want something that has a different language to it, a different language programmed," he explained.

"One of truth, one of honesty, and one of even, you know what? I'd say Goran is strict on me and he's very tough on me. Any other player would probably freak out and be like, 'How the heck is he allowed to talk to me like that?' You know? Get it kind of personal?

"But I need this, because I need the truth, and I need to have someone that's tough with me. And I think that's the foundation that I'm gonna build upon, and that's foundation that I know, obviously he respects me, but this is the way, the execution that I need in order to get my a** to work and show the real Stefanos that's been lacking the last couple of years."

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Although Ivanisevic had huge success coaching Djokovic, both he and Tsitsipas have made it clear that their partnership is very different, and there's a youthful-like excitement in Tsitsipas' eye when he speaks about his new mentor.

He added: "I think the best thing that Goran has kind of stated and made clear is that he's not coaching Novak Djokovic right now, and we are kind of starting from scratch. He's coaching me in a way as if I just started playing tennis, which is a great thing because it's very down-to-earth, and a very humbling experience as a player to get to experience that.

"We have obviously big goals and aspirations, and we want to achieve great things together, but we are kind of building from zero. That's how it feels like. He appreciates me and respects me as a player, and I can see that in his eyes and the way he talks to me. But also, what's humbling about it is that we have both this mutual respect about each other and we know that we are here on this journey to build and start from scratch.

"There are no expectations, obviously he doesn't expect me to, I imagine, from tomorrow to start winning Grand Slams, one after the other, like Novak did for, I don't know, six years of his career on the tour with him. Let's just put it this way, every small success that I manage to achieve with him, it doesn't have to be a huge success, every small success is a huge success, which, if replicated multiple times, starts becoming the standard, if that makes sense."