Jannik Sinner has reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the 10th time in his career, but he suffered a lot after physical problems throughout the match. These were evident with the tremors he showed when he sat in the changeover chair and applied ice towels.
“I woke up badly and I couldn’t even train,” explained the Italian, who had to resort to the Australian Open doctor, an image that was reminiscent of last year’s Wimbledon quarter-finals when he ended up losing to Daniil Medvedev. The temperature in the capital of Victoria reached 35 degrees. The world No.1, despite having done his pre-season in Dubai, is not used to playing in extreme heat conditions.
“I can’t move to the left,” he told his team members in the heat of battle. The match lasted 3 hours and 13 minutes and no one knows what would have happened if Rune had forced the tiebreaker. Sinner was helped by the 17-minute stoppage caused by the net breaking after one of his serves. It had a top speed of 209 kilometers per hour. He now has almost two days to recover before facing the winner of the match between Alex de Minaur and Alex Michelsen in the penultimate round.
Sinner was at times on the edge and that is why at the conclusion he thanked the support of the crowd in the Rod Laver Arena: “90 per cent of the victory is yours and the remaining 10 per cent is mine.” It should be remembered that the San Candido native is under extra pressure after testing positive at Indian Wells for clostebol. He was declared innocent by an independent ITIA tribunal, but WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) appealed the decision. His case will be heard by CAS on April 16 and 17 in Lausanne, Switzerland.