Paolo Bertolucci: “Jannik Sinner’s forfeit in Rome painful but necessary.”
Paolo Bertolucci: "Jannik Sinner’s forfeit in Rome painful but necessary"
In the Gazzetta dello Sport, Paolo Bertolucci, one of the iconic men of our tennis, wrote his usual editorial talking this time about the hip injury that affected Jannik Sinner, causing him to withdraw from the Madrid Masters 1000 and making him forfeit the Internazionali d’Italia at the Foro Italico in Rome that are now about to begin. Here are Bertolucci’s thoughts and words.
“È a sacrifice certainly painful, but absolutely necessary, the renunciation of Jannik Sinner in Rome. Sport at a high level è true that it gives priceless, unique joys and emotions, forò it can also be very cruel. Tennis, but I would say Italian sport in general, had been preparing us for months now to welcome with open arms and to follow Sinner’s exploits step by step at the Foro Italico, everything was ready but unfortunately fate had not been reckoned with. In Monte Carlo I had seen that there’were hip problems for Jannik, but I thought they were mainly due to the many matches played in the first months, especially in the last two tournaments on cement”.
We know how dangerous this surface can be, and I sincerely thought that the player would skip Madrid, would use this period to do a physical booster ahead of the Rome, Paris and all the programming of the’summer. But when his first statements came out instead, in which he stated that he was going to Madrid to play a few matches and loosen up from the hard work he had done, I thought it might also be the right solution, but in particular I was relieved because his participation in Madrid had led me to believe that Sinner’s hip problems had been resolved.
“In Madrid, on the other hand, I saw again the same body language of our champion, the same “unnatural walk” which was not linear as usual and which I had noticed in Monte Carlo. That is why I had also expressed some doubts in the commentary about the player’s complete recovery and was not at all surprised by the news of his forfeit on the eve of the quarterfinals against Aliassime. The tough battle he had sustained against Khachanov the day before had evidently left a rather deep mark on Sinner’s physique. And the three to four days of rest planned before Sunday’s departure for Rome had seemed to me to be sincerely very optimistic. I had expressed these doubts, però I absolutely did not want to pass as a menagramo and avoided treading on the’subject. However, I absolutely avoided the triumphalist tones that I was reading in the newspapers, while not in the least questioning his participation in the Rome Internationals. È it is obvious that this renunciation è the worst news that could have happened to us: Jannik è our top man, not to have him at the start in the most important tournament in Italy è a very hard blow, a blow difficult to digest, but evidently his problem needs a period of rest”.
“The hope è to be able to have him at this point in good condition at Roland Garros. The boy is only 22, I understand his desire to want to play in every event of the year, but health now comes first. Missing 15 days, if not a month, at his age; it would not be a tragedy: Rome, Paris and other very important tournaments he will be able to play them many times, but the primary need è to solve the physical problem completely and to show up at the next event only and exclusively if he will be at 100 percent, otherwise it will be better to stop a few weeks rather than relapse into the problem and have to give up a much larger part of the season. Jannik, unfortunately, is not the only big name who will not be in Rome: he will also miss Carlos Alcaraz, who after the American trip had missed Monte Carlo and Barcelona but forced his return in order to be present in his Madrid, and now he too will be out again. In this sense Jannik will draw lessons from what is happening to his Spanish friend-rival”.
