Tsitsipas ‘hit by karma’ in Australian Open exit

Australian Open 2025

Dates: 12-26 January Venue: Melbourne Park

Stefanos Tsitsipas, who withdrew from playing doubles with his brother and turned to singles, believes that his Australian Open first-round exit was “karma.”

The Greek, runner-up in Melbourne in 2023, lost 7-5 6-3 2-6 6-4 to American Alex Michelsen on the second day’s play.

Before the tournament even started to protect his singles chances, the 11th seed withdrew because he had been scheduled to play doubles with his brother Petros.

“It’s quite ironic. My whole]idea] was to try to go deep. I knew the first thing I had to consider was not playing doubles”, Tsitsipas, 26, said.

“The only goal was to save up some energy and be more fresh, hopefully, in the tournament’s deeper draw.”

“I guess karma hit me. At this year’s event, I was unable to deliver or perform as I had hoped.

Tsitsipas has long been touted as a potential Grand Slam champion, having lost both his previous victories to Novak Djokovic and his Melbourne showpiece in 2021.

However, he lost in the first round at last year’s US Open and in the second round at Wimbledon.

You have way too much time to recover, according to Tsitsipas, which is “the most frustrating part of losing in the first round of a Grand Slam.”

I’ll just be hanging around for a while before my next tournament, just sucks.