As the Australian Open gets into full swing, as expected, the top-10 Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas has enjoyed plenty of support from the Melbourne crowd.
There is so much support for the 21-year-old that the popular Melbourne restaurant, Stalactites, has brought back its special edition souvlaki named after him.
However, the profits from sales of the ‘Tsitsipas Souvlaki’ in 2020 will go towards Australians affected by the devastating bushfires.
The Victorian Country Fire Authority and Wildlife Victoria will be the direct beneficiaries of the sales, in addition to the $10,000 already donated by the owners of the restaurant.
The ‘Tsitsipas Souvlaki’ contains lamb, tomato, tzatziki, pomegranate, fresh basil and mint, crumbled feta, chips and a touch of chilli.
“He actually chose, together with us, all the ingredients for the souvlaki and when he tried for the first time he actually loved it,” restaurant managing director Nicole Papasavas told SBS Greek.
“We launched it on Friday and since Friday we already raised $5,000 for the bushfire appeal and that's in only four days, so it’s very popular.”
This is not the first time the restaurant had donated its profits to charity.
“Last year we donated 50 per cent of proceeds to Stefanos’ charity called ‘Together for the children’, which is in Greece and we went over in July and gave them a cheque for $8000 euros.
“This year we said to Stefanos if he will be interested in donating to the Australian bushfires, but instead of doing 50 per cent, we will do the full amount. We will donate 100 per cent of the proceeds to the Country Fire Authority and Wildlife Victoria and he loved the idea because he is very passionate about the environment. He said that he will absolutely love to get behind this.”
The first time the restaurant gave one of its products the name of a tennis star was in 2006 when Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis reached the final of the Australian Open.
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“Baghdatis was a regular customer of ours, so he will come right here and eat. We told him we are going to make a souvlaki for you, and he thought it was the funniest things ever, so that’s how it came about. It was more like a joke that we did together.
“With Tsitsipas, one of the journalists at the press conference asked him last year ‘do you want to make you souvlaki like they did with Baghdatis?’, and he replied 'that will be pretty cool'.
“So then we approached him and we asked would you like to do it and choose your own ingredients and he said that will be fun to do it.”
Tsitsipas played in the Australian Open's Rally for Relief last week, when superstars including Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams helped raise $4.8 million for bushfire relief.
