Adriano Panatta clarifies his words about Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz: "Badly played"

Former Italian tennis player Adriano Panatta in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport spoke about Jannik Sinner and his rival Carlos Alcaraz. The world number one is playing with Daniil Medvedev for a place in the final of the Rome tournament: his goal is to win the consecutive Masters 1000, something unbelievable in tennis history.

To do so he will have to equal the 1976 Internazionali d’Italia victory of Adriano Panatta, the last Azzurro to achieve it. “When beautiful things get old, they acquire even more charm,” Panatta said recalling his feat. I believe it was the concatenation of events and the way they matured that sedimented a common memory that will never fade: the victory in Rome, two weeks after the one in Paris and always nullifying match points in the first match, then at the end of the year the first Davis Cup in our history in that context we all know. We had taken tennis out of the circles and turned it into a mass phenomenon: and that remains regardless.”

Panatta then clarified a concept about Sinner and Alcaraz: “I did not say that Carlos Alcaraz is stronger than him: I was misinterpreted. I simply said that Alcaraz 100 percent is the only one who can beat Sinner 100 percent. Both belong to a category apart, the difference between the others is enormous.”

“Sinner’s strength is not only technical: compared to all the others, he can maintain a very high continuity of performance much longer. Sure, he too sometimes plays at 60-70%, but how long does it last him? A few games, maybe a set, but eventually he comes back hammering and wins, even when he’s tired,” Panatta concluded.