Is Jannik Sinner’s early loss at Roland-Garros a blip, or indicative of something more important?
The Italian suffered his fourth five-set defeat in his past four Grand Slam events
Jannik Sinner at Roland-Garros (JB Autissier/Panoramic)
For the fourth time in his last four Grand Slam events, Jannik Sinner went out in five sets. Having held match point against Daniel Altmaier – as he did against Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open last September – this will be a bitter pill to swallow.
The Italian has all the skills required to be the world’s best player; we’ve seen that in the past year, in particular. And yet, he has still to get past the quarter-finals of a Slam, always finding someone playing out of their mind, or well enough to beat him.
Is there a problem? The short answer is no.
Sinner has all the talent in the world. We’ve seen that in his clashes with Alcaraz, we’ve seen it this year, winning the title in Montpellier, reaching finals in Rotterdam and Miami (beating Alcaraz along the way), and showing good consistency throughout.
So what went wrong against Altmaier?
First of all, Altmaier played a great match. The German loves clay, loves Roland-Garros and played one of the best matches of his life.
Secondly, Sinner was unlucky. He had match point in the fourth set and had he either put away the smash, which he should have done, or had Altmaier’s forehand pass not flicked off the tape and bounced over Sinner’s racquet, we’d have been talking about a tough, but generally regulation victory.
In his press conference a couple of hours afterwards, Sinner was obviously disappointed but spoke well, calmly, pledging that he will return to Roland-Garros a stronger player, that he had perhaps put too much pressure on himself to produce results in the past couple of tournaments.
Sinner has a great team around him, including a great coach in Darren Cahill, who will know what to say and how to deal with what was clearly a disappointing result. Cahill is a serial winner as a coach, getting the best out of everyone he’s worked with, and he has already improved Sinner’s game. Count on him to continue to do the same.
Stats show Sinner not at his best
Having said all that, Sinner was not at his best. And that happens, of course. But he’ll be disappointed when he looks at the stats; he made just 58 percent of first serves in the match, which immediately put him under pressure. He won 55 percent of points on second serve, which is decent, but in the final set, he won just 44 percent.
Sinner won the majority of points when the rallies were four shots or less, but was outplayed when the rallies went further – 45-50 for the 5-8 category and 32-35 in the nine-plus.
He also didn’t take his chances. Sinner had 21 break points but took just six of them. Altmaier took five of his nine opportunities.
Hard courts likely to offer more success
It’s easy to say that Sinner should have done better, that losing in five sets, again, is becoming a habit. But let’s judge this over a longer period. Cahill’s trying to make him more aggressive, to get matches done and dusted quicker than usual. He’s good on grass and at his most comfortable on a hard court so expect him to enjoy a good second half of the year.
