Jannik Sinner: Benjamin Bonzi sees a chink and challenges the'Azure

Jannik Sinner will make his debut Friday at the Madrid Masters 1000 against Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi, who has always been beaten in the past. The transalpine tennis player is feeling confident after three consecutive victories between qualifying and the first round and hopes to undermine the world number one.

“Against Sinner it will be a great challenge,” he told L’Equipe. “It’s good to come back and win three matches; it’s good to feel, a bit like last year, that he can play very well on clay, especially in these conditions. Now, we’ll see in two days.”

Bonzi feels he can have his say against Azzurro: “I feel my tennis is taking shape. Obviously it won’t be easy. We will see, it will be his first match, maybe there will be some openings, some glimmers to put him in trouble. I don’t know how it will go. We haven’t prepared anything yet, but in any case, I know these are conditions I like. I know I can challenge some very good players here, so we’ll see to what extent. We’ll find out in two days,” Bonzi said.

The precedents between the two clearly smile on Sinner: Bonzi, current world number 104, has lost all three challenges he has played against the South Tyrolean. The Blue won in 2022 in both Indian Wells and Roland Garros, and then again in 2023 in Rotterdam. So the last confrontation was three years ago, an eternity in modern tennis, and in the meantime Sinner has become world number one. The context in which the South Tyrolean comes to this challenge is one of extraordinary form: 17 consecutive victories behind him, the result of triumphs in Indian Wells, Miami, and Monte Carlo, where he conquered the top of the ranking by beating Carlos Alcaraz in the final.

Sinner himself, however, wanted to warn everyone about the peculiarities of the Caja Magica: “It’s a very different tournament than others on clay: the ball travels faster, you control it less, there is less play from the back. It is a condition that favors those who serve very well and makes responding particularly complicated. I’m also here to figure out how best to deal with these situations in the coming years.”