Following his comprehensive loss by Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals at Roland-Garros on Tuesday, Stefanos Tsitsipas said he made a mistake in taking a sleeping pill in the build-up to the match.
The Greek was thoroughly outplayed by the 20-year-old in the first two sets and though he came back from 2-5 down and saved five match points, he couldn’t prevent the world No.1 from clinching a 6-2, 6-1, 7-6(5) victory.
“One thing that I’m going to try to avoid in the future is to have melatonin pills and naps before matches because it clearly doesn’t seem to be working,” Tsitsipas said in a post-match press conference.
“Schedule has been a little bit difficult the last few days. I had some late-night sessions. Not super late, but late enough for me to kind of have my sleep schedule ruined, in a way.
“Sleep is a very vital important thing, and recovery is the most important thing when competing and playing big Slams like this,” he added.
Tsitsipas revealed that he made a similar mistake during his 1-6, 2-6 Paris Masters quarterfinals loss to Novak Djokovic in 2019.
“I’ve made the mistake in the past before playing Novak in Bercy one year, and I had the exact same score as I did in those first two sets. So I feel like melatonin really likes 1 and 2,” the 24-year-old said.
Tuesday’s result means Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic will go head-to-head in the semifinals on Friday and Tsitsipas said he would be supporting Alcaraz for the rest of the week.
“I root for the young kids. He played great. I mean, I don’t think he played exceptional, but he played great,” Tsitsipas said.
Despite the negative impact melatonin had on him, Tsitsipas said he did not want to take anything away from Alcaraz.
“I don’t want to take anything from Carlos. The kid plays well. He deserves to win and everything. Let’s just not talk about it. I’m really bummed about it, that it had such an effect on me, and let’s move on,” he said.
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