Flavia Pennetta gives clear warning to Carlos Alcaraz: it also concerns Jannik Sinner

Former tennis player Flavia Pennetta also spoke about Carlos Alcaraz at Sky Sport’s “Tennis and Summer” event held Monday, May 4, at the Foro Italico in Rome. Just like the champion from Murcia, the former Azzurra during her career also had a wrist problem that held her back.

While specifying that every problem is different, Pennetta wanted to send some advice to the former world number one: “His absence is felt because obviously the rivalry that there is between these two champions is very emotional and felt, it keeps people in the armchair attached to the television.”

The former Brindisi champion advised Alcaraz not to get caught up in wanting to come back just because Jannik Sinner keeps winning: “The only advice I can give him, and his team in general, is not to be in a hurry. Very often when one sees others playing and getting great results the feeling is ‘gosh I want to come back because I’m losing time,’ but it’s not a time issue, quite the opposite. Instead, it is very important to recover with one’s head, with the right amount of time that is needed to recover the best from the injury.”

With Jannik Sinner also triumphing at the Madrid Masters 1000 – capturing his fifth consecutive Masters title – the gap in the ATP ranking has become important: the Italian leads the ranking with 14,350 points, with a 1,290-point advantage over the Spaniard, who is currently in the pits. And the gap is likely to grow even further in the coming weeks, since Alcaraz will not be present at either the Internazionali d’Italia or Roland Garros, two tournaments in which he is defending champion and from which he will lose a total of up to 3,000 points.

According to forecasts, the Spaniard is expected to return for the season on grass, aiming at Wimbledon to find Sinner and reopen a rivalry that, as the South Tyrolean himself recalled, “has just begun.”