Stefanos Tsitsipas’s mum has admitted she was on Paula Badosa’s side when the couple briefly broke up earlier this year.

Tsitsipas and Badosa, both 26, first got together in May 2023, but the latter announced on Instagram they had gone their separate ways in May 2024.

The tennis power couple reconciled three weeks later, and Tsitsipas’s mum, Julia Apostoli, has hinted that she played a part in them getting back together.

‘Stefanos is happy, that’s the most important thing,’ she told Greek talk show To Proino. ‘If he’s happy, I’m happy too.’

‘There was a difficult time when they broke up, but now they’re in love. I was on Paula’s side, we talked and that’s why they found each other again.’

The couple, who have been branded ‘Tsitsidosa’, have gone from strength to strength since getting their relationship back on track, and took home a £250,000 prize after winning a mixed doubles exhibition event in New York last month.

But both players have had their own individual struggles in recent times, with Badosa admitting she was told to stop playing tennis by doctors last year after suffering a number of injury setbacks.

She has since battled back and was able to make the quarter-finals of the US Open this month before being knocked out by home favourite Emma Navarro.

Meanwhile, Tsitsipas is still trying to reach his full potential as he continues his bid for a first grand slam after losing French Open and Australian Open finals in 2021 and 2023 respectively.

He fired his own dad as his coach this summer after claiming ‘he’s not very smart or good’, and his mum has revealed the decision was a long time coming, but insisted it has not affected their personal relationship.

‘He is a professional and although he loves his father very much, he understands that he has to find another coach,’ Apostoli explained.

‘Since 2020 when he lost in the US Open, we said with Apostolos that Stefanos needs to change his coach. But four years passed and Stefanos was bringing good results.

‘Of course, I think that Apostolos and Stefanos did not have such a good relationship since then. They had conflicts. And that’s why Stefanos made the decision to change coaches. We don’t see it as a tragedy. We are all together and we are a close family.’