Tennis Player Stefanos Tsitsipas Blames Sleeping Pills, Naps For Loss

Greek tennis Stefanos Tsitsipas is pointing his finger at sleeping pills and naps as the reason why he made a quarterfinals exit from the French Open.

Tsitsipas lost in straight sets to world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz.

After the match, Tsitsipas discussed how he thought melatonin and naps tanked his chances of advancing further into the tournament.

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

As a fan of both melatonin (gotta go with the gummies though) and naps, I find this startling.

But I can see how it happens. Especially if you pick up some heavy-duty melatonin. However, Tsitsipas acknowledged that while he didn't get his schedule set properly in France, sleep is hugely important when playing in grueling tennis tournaments.

“Sleep is a very vital, important thing, and recovery is the most important thing when competing and playing big slams like this."

He also revealed that this wasn't the first time that he had made a similar mistake.

“I’ve made the mistake in the past... and I had the exact same score as I did in those first two sets.”

By losing that match the 24-year-old missed out on a chance to face Novak Djokovic in the French Open semifinals.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.