WITH all the ATP Tour and WTA Tour tournaments on hiatus for the time being, Draft Central will take a look at various nations across the globe and analyse how the top players from that nation are performing. Our next nation is Greece.

Top ATP player: Stefanos Tsitsipas
Rank: 6th
Age: 21
Points: 4745
Tournaments played: 26

The 21-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas is up there with the best in the world at the moment, with grit and determination against the big names in tennis proving his skill despite his youth. While he currently sits one down in rankings from his 2019 personal best of fifth in the world, his win-loss of 117-67 has him in good stead for 2020. Already with one title already under his belt this year in Marseille in February, defeating Canadian and fellow youngster Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-3 6-4.

Since February 2019 Tsitsipas has consistently maintained a global ranking in the top 10, completing his first full year within the top 10 rankings and with still plenty of untapped potential when it comes to taking on veterans of the game. Tsitsipas’ recent form has seen two confident wins in Manila and the Marseille title but prior to that he failed to make it to the semi finals in Rotterdam or the Australian Open, only making it to the Round of 32 before being defeated by Milos Raonic in two and a half hours. Tsitsipas has a reliable serve winning off an impressive 82 per cent of his first serves but could rely too much on winning his service games, only winning off 22 per cent of return games.

Other notable Greek ATP players: Michail Pervolarakis (#433), Markos Kalovelonis (#711)

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Top WTA player: Maria Sakkari
Rank: 20
Age: 24
Points: 2130
Tournaments played: 25

Maria Sakkari is real talent and at age 24 is only now really starting to show her skill with a solid 2019 season behind her including a maiden WTA title victory at Rabat last May, defeating Johanna Konta after a slow start, 2-6 6-4 6-1. She continued her form with a consistent and improved effort in the 2020 Australian Open, making it to the Round of 16 for the first time in any Grand Slam and really pushing to maintain her spot in the competition. She defeated tenth seed Madison Keys before going down in a three-set battle to Petra Kvitova, but while she was at it really proved she can take it to quality players making the 2020 season a real opportunity to work her way up the rankings if all goes to plan.

Despite retiring early from her most recent matchup against Aryna Sabalenka in Doha in late February, Sakkari has had a solid 2020 thus far with some quality wins in the books, but has fallen short a few times with a clear room for improvement on the return – only winning off 33.5 per cent of return games so far in 2020. That being said, she has hit 60 aces and won off 63 per cent of her first serve which is an impressive effort given some of the talent she has taken on this year, making her a real contender and certainly not one to underestimate on the court.

Other notable Greek WTA players: Despina Papamichail (#264), Valentini Grammatikopoulou (#300), Sapfo Sakellaridi (#805), Eleni Kordolaimi (#847)

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Summary:

Greece has some real talent among the ranks, with an ability to shock opposition and plenty of names inside the Top 1000 globally. WIth a bit more exposure and consistency, the nation could really push to make a name for itself in the tennis world thanks to its young talent.