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#2 Stefanos Tsitsipas
Born into a tennis family where his mother was a professional on the WTA Tour and his father a trained tennis coach, Stefanos Tsitsipas took up the sport at the young age of 3.
The long-haired 6'4'' Greek youngster has had a breakthrough year of sorts. He made a solid start to the year, making the quarter-finals of the Qatar Open losing to Dominic Thiem. The next month, he faced setbacks getting knocked out in the 1st round of a handful of tournaments.
His first defining moment of the season came at the Barcelona Open where he beat Dominic Thiem and Pablo Carreno Busta to make the final which he eventually would lose to Nadal. Another impressive win over Kevin Anderson at the Estoril Open followed.
By now, the tennis world was taking keen interest in him. He reached the 4th Round at Wimbledon -- his best ever Grand Slam finish. At the Citi Open, he managed to scalp another Top-10 player in David Goffin.
The best week of the 20-year-old's budding tennis career came at the Rogers Cup. He beat 4 top-10 players (Dominic Thiem, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev and Kevin Anderson sequentially) en route to his way to the final. Though he lost in straight sets to Nadal, Tsitsipas had made a huge sign of intent and sent a strong message to his competitors on the ATP circuit. He won the Stockholm Open to claim his maiden ATP trophy.
At the 2018 Next Gen Finals in Milan, he went 5-0 as he won all his matches to win the title for the very first time. His victories over fellow youngsters Francis Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev and Alex De Minaur over the course of the tournament would have given him immense confidence.
At 20, Tsitsipas is already the most successful player ever from Greece and looks set to scale new peaks in 2019.
