Italy’s Jannik Sinner has hinted that he is prepared to withdraw from the Barcelona Open to avoid the risk of sustaining an injury after winning his third round match on Thursday.
The world No.8 ousted Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 6-1, 4-6, 6-3, after more than two hours of play in what was a mixed encounter. Sinner cruised through the opening set in just 25 minutes but it was in the second where he became unstuck. Twice he had to come back from a break down and then he had a break in his favour but failed to capitalize on the opportunity. Paving way for Nishioka to force the match into a decider. Despite the blip, Sinner sealed the victory by winning four out of the last five games played.
Sinner, who has reached the semi-final or better at the last three Masters 1000 tournaments, admitted afterwards that his latest win wasn’t the best and he struggled to fully recover from his previous match against Diego Schwartzman which he won in straight sets. Against Nishioka, he only managed to get 44% of his first serves in and won 44% of his second.
“I have been playing a lot of matches lately and suffered from cramps. I have to recover for tomorrow because I know it will be a very tough match, at the moment I have no pain and that is the most important thing,” Punto de Break quoted Sinner as saying during his press conference.
The 21-year-old is now 26-6 this season and has reached the quarter-final stage in seven out of eight tournaments. He is set to play compatriot Lorenzo Musetti in the next round who knocked out Cameron Norrie 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. However, doubts over that match taking place have arisen.
“The truth is that I expected to recover more from yesterday to today,” Sinner admits.
“We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. If I feel like today … I don’t want to get injured, that’s something I don’t want. Now the important thing is to recover, I know my body after what happened last year what its limit is.”
Also through to the quarter-final is Stefanos Tsitsipas who eased to a 6-3, 6-2, win over Denis Shapovalov. The world No.5 has now reached the last eight of the tournament in four out of five appearances.
“I tried to stay as aggressive as I could from the baseline,” Tsitsipas said. “Against Denis you have to keep up with the pace and be ready to attack when you can. It wasn’t easy out here but I did a very good job. I was responsible with my decision making. It was a good day.”
Another winner was Alejandro Davidovich Fokina who beat Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 7-5. Finally, Alex de Minaur was handed a walkover after Grigor Dimitrov withdrew from their match due to illness.
