BarcelonaNo Greek tennis player has ever won a Australian Open“>Grand Slam tournament. In a country where sport is part of the national identity, the racket has not found prophets. Until recently, the big reference was Eleni Daniilidou, who in 2003 was the first Greek to reach a Grand Slam final in Australia, in the doubles tournament. The Cretan-born player lost. Greek tennis, however, has seen the arrival of a new generation eager to break down barriers. In 2021, Maria Sakkari became the first Greek woman to reach the semifinals of a major tournament, at Roland Garros, the same year that Stefanos Tsitsipas reached the men’s final, in which she lost to Djokovic. Tsitsipas is now looking for his second final, after reaching the Australian Open semi-finals for the third time by beating Italian Jannik Sinner (6-4, 6-3, 6-2) in three sets.
“I was just right. I am very happy with my service. It’s amazing to have the support of the stands, “said the Athenian player, referring to the hundreds of Australians with Greek roots who have supported him on a happy day for them, as in the men’s doubles tournament, two Australians with Greek surname Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis have reached the semi-finals. At the age of 23, Tsitsipas drew attention in 2019 when he won the Masters, but then physical problems have conditioned his career, with an elbow operation a few months ago that led to questioning his presence in Melbourne .
The story of Tsitsipas is the story of a Greek seafaring people. A land that has always lived connected to the Hellenic communities that live far from home. Born in Athens, his father was tennis coach Apostolos Tsitsipas, who in the 1980s met the Soviet Julia Salnikova, an international tennis player with Greek blood, on the circuit. Taking advantage of the fall of the USSR, Salnikova married Tsitsipas and competed in her last international years defending the Greek flag. The sport carried him in his blood, thanks to his father, Tsitsipas’ grandfather: the football player Sergei Salnikov. Born in 1925 in Krasnodar on the Black Sea, Salnikov was part of the large Russian Greek community descended from the Greeks who had come to the Black Sea to establish colonies there before Christ. A successful footballer, he trained at Zenith Leningrad, where he won the 1944 Cup and became a promising youngster. In 1946 he went to Spartak, where he won two more cups. In 1950, however, he decided to leave his great rival, Dinamo, in a move that was considered a betrayal by fans. In time, Salnikov explained the reasons. Dinamo was the team controlled by the KGB, the Soviet secret services. By signing for Dinamo, Salnikov sought to help his godfather, who had been sent to a gulag at a time when members of national minorities, such as the Greeks, were being persecuted by Stalinism. Once his godfather was released and Salnikov was key to Dinamo’s victory in the 1953 Cup, scoring the only goal in the final, and in the 1954 league, he received permission to return to his club. he was an amateur, the Spartak. With them he would win two leagues and a cup. In addition, in 1956 he was part of the Soviet team that would win Olympic gold in Melbourne, the city where his grandson is now looking to win the Australian Open. The Soviet team, with a golden generation with Lev Yashin in goal and players like Netto, Streltsov and Salnikov, had no rival. Salnikov would later become the most successful coach, although he lived them to the fullest, as he worked for many years in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion leading the local team.
While he played veteran games and continued to coach clubs, one of his daughters, Julia, began to excel as a tennis player; he was, of course, a member of the Moscow Spartak. Salnikova would become the world number one in the junior category, in which she won three titles and participated in various editions of the Federation Cup with the Soviet team. In the late 1980’s, however, tired of her injuries, she decided to pursue a career in journalism and combine her studies with a sport that would lead her to meet Apostolos Tsitsipas, who would be her husband and coach until 1922, when she retired. se after two years competing as a Greek. The land of his ancestors, where he ended up returning. Now all the final inheritance falls on the shoulders of Stefanos, who remembers growing up on tennis courts, always with a racket in his hand, in Glifada, next to Piraeus, where he lived.
Now 25, Tsitsipas is positioning himself as one of the names he wants to lead in tennis once the star of Federer, Djokovic or Nadal goes out. In the city where his grandfather hung Olympic gold under a red flag, the young Athenian excites the thousands of Australians who do not forget that their roots are in Greece.
