Paris 2024 Olympics, Luca Bottazzi’s incredible prophecy about Jannik Sinner’s forfeit
Paris 2024 Olympics, Luca Bottazzi's incredible prophecy about Jannik Sinner’s forfeit
Last June 16, with Roland Garros a week over and just a few days before the eve of Wimbledon, Luca Bottazzi, a former tennis player, commentator, pundit, tennis coach and writer, interviewed by mowmag.com, said he was almost certain that Jannik Sinner would not go to the Olympics because playing on clay a two-set-to-three-set tournament after playing on Wimbledon grass would ruin his preparation for tournaments on American cement and particularly the US Open. Incredibly, this prophecy è came true, although the official reason for Sinner’s forfeit è was tonsillitis. Here are Bottazzi’s words going back forty days.
“The Olympic tournament è very complicated to predict, becauseé in the middle of the tennis calendar once every four years. It is replayed on clay in the 2 out of 3: It is replayed on clay after grass and then closed in America playing on cement. Sinner has to stay No. 1, so I am almost sure he does not go to the Olympics. Going to the Olympics could also ruin his season. Let’s not forget that these then get hurt, they are Formula Ones pulled to the limit, and so to do an extra race; out of one’s predictions, è inadvisable. An Olympic medal è of course it is important, but so is a player who already has a solid career behind him and has won so many Slams. They will be important and crucial moreù in là but not now”.
Two days ago then, after the’announcement that Sinner would postpone his departure for Paris because he’d been struck by a high fever, Bottazzi recoiled: “I have always thought, that for Sinner these Olympics happen at a wrong time because he’s chasing stability so that he can remain number one in the world. Playing on clay and then going back to play on American cement is not è the best medicine. That is why I was always convinced that he would miss the Olympic Games. Prediction that, if it is fulfilled, I am happy for the fans, but less so for Sinner because I would not want him to pay the bill for this programming” at the end of the season.
Agreeing with him today, also on mowmag.com, è was another former tennis player, Daniele Bracciali. These are his words on Sinner’s forfaii: “È very true, Bottazzi è has been saying for a while that Sinner would skip Paris because of a discourse of calendar and scheduling, because é after that begins the concrete in America. As a discourse there can’ be, but you also have to evaluate the importance of the Olympics, which by now can’ be compared to the value of a Grand Slam, or maybe even something more; since there are once every four years. The scheduling argument I don’t know how much it holds up, because he could have played the Olympics quietly and then started on concrete skipping the first Masters 1000 on the same surface, which would not have given him any problems. Whereas a gold medal changes so much”.
“I don’t think he just has tonsillitis, because for something like that, let’s be honest, with an antibiotic he could have played comfortably,” Bracciali continued. “Maybe he has some infection or something more important and maybe he really missed them for that reason. So I don’t think an extra tournament on clay would have changed his schedule that much. The condition now I don’t think is good becauseé otherwise in my opinion he would never have withdrawn. At this point even if he had participated in my opinion he still would not have been the favorite to win a tournament on clay, even if he è the number 1. On clay I always put Alcaraz as the favorite, but maybe a final or another medal he had a big chance to get it. Lately forò è it is true that we have not seen him at his best, even at Wimbledon we noticed that. That is why I say that physically he is not è in the best moment”.
