Jannik Sinner’s budding relationship with Anna Kalinskaya isn’t the only romance taking over this year’s French Open.
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa are set to compete in mixed doubles at Roland Garros beginning Wednesday, shortly after confirming they got back together.
“The relationship is working very well now,” Bardosa said in a press conference Saturday before the start of the tournament, according to Tennis.com. “He already explained. I have nothing else to say.”
Weeks after Badosa revealed in early May that she and Tsitsipas “have decided to amicably part ways,” the Greek athlete — who is ranked No. 9 in the world — explained why he needed time apart and what brought them back to one another.
“It was hard for us being apart and I was going through some hard times too. I would say that I didn’t manage it very well either, because I was feeling the pressure of the tour, of my work. It seemed like a mountain to combine these two, and I made the decision to take a break,” the 25-year-old Tsitsipas recently told Greek journalist Vicky Georgatou, Tennis.com reported.
“After two, three weeks I realized that she is a person who has supported me a lot and when she tried to talk to me about meeting I felt how intense the love we have for each other is. I realized that this relationship I have with Paula is completely different from any other relationship I have had in the past.”
In verifying that the couple is “in a good moment,” Tsitsipas called Badosa “my person.”
“We understand each other; that puts more value in everything I do and I want her by my side as often as possible,” he said.
Ahead of her first-round match Tuesday against the U.K.’s Katie Boulter, the 26-year-old Spaniard shared how she and Tsitsipas are looking to make their romance more private.
“I think one of the things that I didn’t like or we didn’t like is that it was very public, so now we want to keep things a little bit more on our own. I still understand that it’s not going to be easy because we are two public people, public person, and people will ask, but we want to keep it more for ourselves because it’s never easy to combine our careers to that,” said Badosa, who once shared the joint “Tsitsidosa” Instagram account with her beau.
Tsitsipas and Badosa will face Japan’s Ena Shibahara and American Nathaniel Lammons on Wednesday in the first round of mixed doubles.
The 2023 Australian Open finalist will battle Germany’s Daniel Altmaier in Wednesday’s second round.
Tsitsipas was first linked to Badosa in the summer of 2023.
