The fall from the top of men’s tennis is swift and unforgiving, as Stefanos Tsitsipas has learnt all too well. This year, his ranking slid all the way to No. 34, a position he hasn’t seen since 2018, and injuries only added to the frustration of a season where he won just one title. But seeing his struggles, former world No. 8, Marcos Baghdatis had some advice to help him start over.

Baghdatis stressed the significance of going back to the fundamentals, drawing on his personal experience as a professional tennis player. “Start from scratch. Start from zero again and accept where you are right now and build up on that,” he advised.

Baghdatis knows the process well. He reached the Australian Open final in 2006 before falling to Roger Federer, later made the Wimbledon semifinal the same year, and climbed as high as No. 8 in the world. And since then, his career lost momentum.

From 2007 onward, a mixture of injuries and “the wrong schedule and choices” affected his consistency. By the end of 2008, his ranking had dropped sharply, from a top-10 peak to outside the Top 50.

Repeated injuries (wrist, back, knee, and other physical problems) hindered his performance and forced him to skip tournaments or compete suboptimally. And that is why his advice matters at least to Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Because though Tsitsipas won in Dubai in March, the rest of his year never quite looked like the player who once challenged for the biggest titles, eerily similar to Baghdatis’ career trajectory.

Baghdatis also cautioned Stefanos Tsitsipas against expecting to instantly feel the same way as when one was at the top. “When you are top 10 and then you fall down, you always want to feel the same that you felt when you were there or when you played that match, but it’s not possible to feel the same,” he explained. “Acceptance”, he says, is key: acknowledging your current position and taking it one step at a time.

And coming from Baghdatis, the message carries real weight. He has been one of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ idols since childhood, someone he grew up watching and admiring. Tsitsipas once said, “It was great seeing him battle against the great players of his time… Marcos might not have won a Grand Slam, but he was a great player and I consider him one of my role models.”

But the question is, what went wrong for Tsitsipas this year?

Why 2025 became Stefanos Tsitsipas’ hardest season yet

2025 turned into one of the harshest years of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ career. His body never gave him a chance to settle. Lingering back problems followed him from tournament to tournament, and they reached a breaking point at Wimbledon, where he was forced to retire in the opening round.

The pain didn’t stop there. As the season unfolded, more setbacks arrived, including a leg injury that pushed him out of the Shanghai Masters.

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The struggles showed up in his results, too. At the French Open, he fell early to a qualifier, a loss that signaled deeper issues with form. In the middle of this turbulence, he made several coaching changes, searching for stability and a new direction. He began the season with Dimitris Chatzinikolaou, then turned to Goran Ivanisevic, hoping the Grand Slam-winning experience of Novak Djokovic’s former coach would guide him through the storm.

However, that collaboration quickly fell apart. Under Ivanisevic, Stefanos Tsitsipas won just one game before the two split after just two months. Without holding back, Ivanisevic referred to Tsitsipas as “the more unprepared player” he had ever witnessed. Tsitsipas went back to working with his father, Apostolos, after his confidence was shaken, but his performance continued to decline.

All of this leaves Stefanos Tsitsipas heading into 2026 with more questions than answers. The Australian Open will be an early test of where he truly stands.

As Marcos Baghdatis said, “There is no doubt that Tsitsipas has the necessary skills to return to the Top 10 of the ATP rankings, but he must start making bold decisions. These choices will determine his role on the tour in the coming years.”