Stefanos Tsitsipas Mother Has Brutal Reaction to His Social Media Activity

Stefanos Tsitsipas is one of the most interesting personalities on the ATP Tour. He’s so unique that even his parents are sometimes stunned by what he does.

The Greek player has had a pretty solid career. He won the 2019 ATP Finals, reached two Grand Slam finals, and climbed to world No. 3. Plus, he’s won the Monte-Carlo Masters three times.

But let’s be honest – Tsitsipas makes headlines for way more than just his tennis.

For a while, he dated fellow tennis player Paula Badosa, and their relationship got tons of attention. He’s also had some pretty public disagreements with players like Nick Kyrgios and Daniil Medvedev.

If you spend any time online, though, you probably know Tsitsipas best for his social media posts.

His Twitter game is… something else

The 27-year-old is one of the most active tennis players on X (formerly Twitter). But here’s the thing – he doesn’t really post about tennis. Instead, he tries to be relatable by posting about life in general.

Sometimes it backfires pretty badly.

His mother, Julia Salnikova, was recently asked about her son’s social media activity in an interview with Russian publication Sport. She admitted she doesn’t agree with many of his posts, but there’s not much she can do about it.

"Believe me, several times, after reading some of his posts or opinions, I stood there with my mouth open and digested it all. And tried to find something positive in it. I don’t agree with a lot of things, but I have no influence on them."

That’s got to be tough for a parent to watch.

The outsider problem

Tsitsipas isn’t exactly making enemies on tour, but he’s not hanging out with other players much either. His mom thinks she knows why.

According to her, Stefanos has way too many interests outside of tennis.

"That’s just the way he is. And it would be strange if all the players were fond of him. I don’t want to offend anyone, but he really is a bit of an outsider to them. And they’re not entirely his, either. It’s just that Stepa has so many interests outside of tennis that he can’t fully integrate into this community. It doesn’t stimulate him enough."

She calls it his "first problem in professional sport" and says she saw it coming from when he was a kid.

The motivation issue is real, especially when you compare him to players like Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Those guys live and breathe tennis.

"To have the same motivation as Sinner and Alcaraz, you have to work on it and live for it. You have to wake up and say, ‘Okay, yesterday I made a couple of mistakes on the right, I didn’t shorten it in time a couple of times—now I’ll go work on it.’"

Tsitsipas will put in the work too. But while he’s training, he’s also thinking about completely different stuff.

"Stepa will also go and work. But in the meantime, he’ll also call his friend, who doesn’t play tennis at all but has ideas about how drones and modern technology could impact the business of the future. And they’ll discuss it very seriously."

His mom puts it perfectly: "And how far can Styopa fit in the tennis niche? His head sticks out too much. It’s a bit too small."

Maybe that’s exactly what makes him interesting, though. In a sport where most players follow the same path and think about the same things, Tsitsipas is genuinely different.

Whether that helps or hurts his tennis career is another question entirely.