When Jannik Sinner plays and why there's a risk: what happens and the'warning from the'Azure
It is the day of the semifinals of the men’s draw at the Internazionali d’Italia in Rome. On paper at the Foro Italico they will face Casper Ruud and Luciano Darderi on the central court at 3:30 p.m. and Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev also on the same court at 7 p.m. On paper, because the weather conditions could turn everything upside down.
The Municipality of Rome has in fact issued a yellow weather alert starting in the morning for the next 24-36 hours, with potential consequences and delays on all scheduled matches. According to the forecast, the first weak rains will arrive in the early afternoon, while from 4 p.m. onwards there is a high probability of showers and thunderstorms (70 percent rain).
Under these conditions, Ruud and Darderi’s match is likely to be interrupted or end later, and Sinner and Medvedev’s match is clearly at risk. The world number one Blue risks playing late in the evening or in the middle of the night, a condition he definitely wants to avoid, as he has warned in recent days.
“I don’t like to take the court so late, we are human,” he had said in a press conference. “Then there is the time difference, you go to bed late, then the treatments, you have to eat, the press conference. When you get on the court so late, it’s hard to play good tennis. But I respect the audience who stayed up late, though.”
So a postponement of the match to Saturday cannot be ruled out, but it would penalize the winner of the match ahead of Sunday’s final. Sinner has already reiterated several times that the priority is his physical condition in view of Roland Garros, his big goal of this first half of the season.
The balance of the precedents with Medvedev smiles on the Blue, ahead 9-7 in the head-to-head with the Russian, with a clear reversal of the trend from the beginning of the rivalry, when Medvedev had won the first six direct clashes. In recent seasons, the balance of power has completely reversed, with four consecutive defeats for the Russian in recent confrontations.
