Jannik Sinner, Adriano Panatta go straight down after what happened
Jannik Sinner’s surprising defeat at Roland Garros was also analyzed by Adriano Panatta in Corriere della Sera. The former Italian tennis player, the last Italian winner in Paris in 1976, issued a clear warning to the world number one, who collapsed when he was about to close out the match. “Tennis is born from defeats, but I think even a serial winner like Sinner knows that. Yet the archives don’t help, the casuistry of matches lost just one game away from victory, no longer able to affect a match that had been dominated up to that point, as if something inside him had exploded, are reduced to just a few cases.”
“I agree with Jannik when he says that the heat had nothing to do with it. However, I hope he takes this issue seriously, very seriously, and wants to see it through to the end. We need thorough, full-court checks, in tennis like this nothing can be taken lightly.” The San Candido champion himself confirmed that he will undergo tests in the next few days.
“I have no doubt that Jannik will also bring home Roland Garros, but the important thing now is to be well, to understand why his wonderful engine suddenly starts running on empty. Whether it’s a matter of head or physique. Problems, Sinner has always shown he can deal with them.”
For German tennis legend Boris Becker, the problem would be mainly mental: “I don’t know if it was the heat. He plays for two hours and all of a sudden he starts showing signs of cramping. I have a hard time believing it, and in my opinion it’s all his fault. I liked that he didn’t make excuses and simply said, ‘It was my fault.’ He was completely drained. This was one game too many. It can happen to anyone. In recent weeks he had been playing as if he was from another planet, always focused, always ready to answer everyone’s questions. In my opinion it cannot be a physical problem, it must be mental. We don’t know what is going on inside him. How much pressure is he putting on himself? He said he has been sleeping badly. When you think too much and you’re nervous, it’s hard to sleep.”
Fabio Fognini, another former Italian, also wanted to have his say on social media, with words that mixed bitterness and confidence in the champion: “Something happened that no tennis fan thought could ever happen: Jannik was leading two sets to zero and 5-1 in the third when his body suddenly gave up on him. This makes us think, as he himself said, that we are not robots. And if the world number one says so, we open our eyes guys.” Fognini then concluded with a clear message, “It hurts a lot but let’s always remember one thing: Jannik remains Jannik.”
