Jannik Sinner in Monte Carlo: how long he took to get through Roland Garros
Jannik Sinner is in Monte Carlo, aiming to forget Roland Garros once and for all and present himself at the highest possible level at Wimbledon. The South Tyrolean had already been “pinched” on a Vespa together with partner Laila Hasanovic on the streets of the Principality, and he will spend at least ten days here. The goal is to get rid of all the physical and also psychological toxins before returning to work and putting his sights back on his next goals in great tennis.
Rolland Garros represented the peak of Sinner’s psychophysical collapse, who had already been complaining for some time of a growing fatigue that in Paris deflagrated in the illness he picked up on court against Juan Manuel Cerundolo. From the medical point of view, the specialist controls to which the Italian champion will undergo at the J Medical in Turin will shed light, from the mental point of view he himself has specified that he needs to dispose of the stress also physical son of the five Masters 1000 won in a row. He will do so in Monte Carlo, now we also know how long he has decided to stop completely.
The break is expected to last at least until June 8. After that, the world number one will begin specific preparation on grass, a surface on which he had written a historic page in 2025 by winning the title at Wimbledon, a tournament that opens on June 29 and that the South Tyrolean will face as defending champion. A choice, that of skipping the preparatory tournaments of Halle and Queen’s, which confirms the desire to manage his energies with extreme care in view of the most prestigious appointment of the summer season.
A significant backstory had already emerged in the weeks leading up to the Paris collapse: during the Madrid Masters 1000, Sinner had turned to a physiotherapist confiding an eloquent phrase about the level of fatigue he had accumulated – “I’m dead” – words that tell better than any statistics the intensity of the months experienced by the Italian champion and that today take on an almost prophetic value with respect to what happened later in Paris.
On the interpretation front, the debate in the tennis world has not subsided. Boris Becker put forward the hypothesis of a mental problem, but Matteo Berrettini – who in Paris avenged his friend by beating Cerundolo himself 6-3, 7-6, 7-6 and reaching the quarterfinals – firmly rejected this reading: “Jannik has proven a million times over that he is a champion who is making the history of tennis, not just Italian tennis. I don’t think he froze because of the fear of being sick.” Also an authoritative voice was Pat Cash, who dismissed the catastrophists just as firmly: “We’re still talking about a player who is having an incredible season. I am sure he will find solutions to these challenges because he is a great player.”
At Sinner’s side in this time of recovery is, of course, Laila Hasanovic, the Danish partner who had been a constant and valuable presence in recent weeks: in the stands at the Foro Italico for the painful semifinal against Medvedev and then for the final won over Ruud, the one that had handed Jannik his sixth consecutive Masters 1000 and the completion of the Career Golden Masters, making him the first Italian to triumph at the Internazionali d’Italia since Adriano Panatta in 1976. Now, as the Principality prepares to welcome the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the two are enjoying a well-deserved break together, with Sinner needing – as he himself admitted – to recharge his batteries before returning to the hunt for new goals.
