Stefanos Tsitsipas says he regrets taking sleeping pills and naps before French Open loss to Alcaraz

Tsitsipas, a 24-year-old Greek player who lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the Grand Slam quarterfinals 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (5), gave an interesting justification for his play.

Instead of praising Carlos Alcaraz’s outstanding performance, Stefanos Tsitsipas blamed his disappointing loss in the French Open 2023 quarterfinals on sleeping pills, naps, and late-night matches.

The match started at around 8:30 p.m. local time and lasted a little over 2 hours. Tsitsipas seemed to want to take a little nap beforehand.

“One thing that I’m going to try to avoid in the future is (having) melatonin pills and naps before matches,” Tsitsipas added because it clearly doesn’t seem to be working.

A hormone called melatonin helps control the body’s sleep cycle.

“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,” Tsitsipas said. He also stated that people understand the need for sleep and recovery while participating in and playing big Slams like these.

He also stated to have attempted to take melatonin prior to his 2019 match against Novak Djokovic in an indoor competition in Paris. What was the outcome of that one? Tsitsipas was beaten 6-1, 6-2.