Stefanos Tsitsipas reacts to Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka deciding to retire from tennis this year

October 22, 2026 4 Min Read

Stefanos Tsitsipas has shared his admiration for retired players who stay retired as Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka near the end of their careers.

Wawrinka will retire from tennis at the Swiss Indoors Basel, with the icon currently playing at the Lyon Open. Meanwhile, his fellow ATP legend Monfils shocked tennis fans when his retirement was quietly confirmed earlier this month.

Currently playing at the Almaty Open, Tsitsipas has now issued a lengthy verdict on players retiring, such as Wawrinka and Monfils. Tsitsipas beat Mikhail Kukushkin to reach the quarterfinals in Almaty, in what was the latter’s final match before retirement.

Stefanos Tsitsipas reacts to Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka retiring

Tsitsipas spoke to the media in Kazakhstan after the win, where the impending retirements of Monfils and Wawrinka were mentioned. He commented: “I feel like these players, they’ve been around for a long time and it’s their time. It’s fair to say it’s their time. They’ve played a long time on the tour. I remember watching Stan and Gael when I was a child. I’m talking about eight, nine years old, that’s how many years they’ve been playing.

“And they know it’s their time, they’re aware of it. For some it’s more difficult to accept that they will be stopping professional tennis in a few weeks. For some it’s a more clear, easier decision to make. I always encourage people like that, they should always look at the other side of life.

“I feel like you get lost a little bit in tennis. You get dragged with so many tournaments. Your life is so stimulating playing so much. The competition itself, the adrenaline, that rush of entering the court, playing in the biggest stages around the world.

“You almost get scared of it when you approach the ending of your career. I can very much understand how it feels. It’s a scary place to be because you haven’t experienced life without it. You haven’t been away from tennis, almost like a second life to be honest.

“It’s almost like in a way, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s almost like you die and you have to be reborn again and now there’s a new version of how your life looks like. So it’s very difficult for some people to accept and to cope with it. We’ve seen examples in the women’s game, they retire and they come back, and maybe sometimes in the men’s game I’ve seen that a bit in the past. It’s a big decision.

“I respect those that retire and retire for good. For me they have massive respect that they’ve taken that decision, they stick to the decision, and for those that know what they’re going to do after their career. There’s a lot of respect on that too, that they don’t get anxious that life without tennis is going to be a difficult place to cope with.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas ‘sad’ at the lack of players with a single-handed backhand

Tsitsipas also entered into a lengthy discussion about a signature shot that is not as prevalent in the game as it once was. The Greek star is among the few players who still utilise a single-handed backhand, alongside the retiring Wawrinka. Tennis legend Roger Federer also famously used the technique.

Sharing his relationship with the iconic shot, Tsitsipas said: “When I began my tennis journey my coach encouraged the single-handed backhand, and my coach is a very classical coach, idolising players like Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras, these type of players.

“My father, when he first met him, he was mesmerised by how my coach played, and he made a promise to himself years later that in that moment that if he ever has kids he would like those kids to be coached by him. So that coach was my second coach, because I had a mini tennis coach before that, who was also someone that made me fall in love with the game.

“Myself, I was indecisive from the beginning because I switched one day from double the next day to a single, and I was kind of trying to discover myself and what I personally like. I feel like coaches discourage a single-handed backhand. I feel like it’s easier to play a double, and you see a lot of kids from a young age stick to a double-handed backhand because they are not strong, they are not tall, and high balls are very difficult to manage and deal with.

“And the only way you can cope with those type of balls is having a double-handed backhand, especially when you don’t have as much strength and you don’t really have that height that you will have eventually later in life. And it’s just not in the teaching of tennis anymore to teach a single-handed backhand. I feel like it has vanished a little bit.

“If coaches were persistent about it, we would be seeing way more single-handers out there, and it’s sad to see a stat from the 1960s showing that almost, if you were to take it from the 1960s, 49 players out of 50 were playing a single-handed backhand, and now it has gone the other way around.

“I don’t know what kind of tennis revolution we need to come up with, but myself, I encourage young kids to play a single-handed backhand. And I would be a fan of kids playing a single-handed backhand one day if I retire. I would love to see the next generation of tennis players pursue that shot and not be scared to play it.”

Tsitsipas found it difficult at times against the retiring Kukushkin, and he now faces another veteran in the next round. He meets James Duckworth in the quarterfinals of Almaty, with the winner taking on either Nikoloz Basilashvili or Adrian Mannarino. Top seed Daniil Medvedev then represents a possible final opponent for the Greek ace should he make it that far.