Sinner, the idea of venting his frustration this way wasn’t exactly brilliant: immediate disqualification.
In these first Australian days he has only stretched his legs, but already the fruits of the hard work done in Alicante have been seen, word from those in Melbourne. He now seems to be hitting the ball even more powerfully and incisively, a sign that his priority at the moment is to hurt his opponents. Prevent them from receiving his serves, forehands and backhands.
How much and how much his game has changed, in light of the winter preparation carried out in Spain, we will only see in a few days, when the Slam gets into full swing. Some taste, however, he may already be giving us at the exhibition tournament in which he will take part in the coming days, the prestigious Kooyong Classic. It is played in Melbourne from January 10 to 12, and Jannik Sinner will make his debut on the very first day of the event, when it will be 11 a.m. in the land of kangaroos and 1 a.m. in Italy. Sinners will certainly keep the early hours, if only to enjoy live the first act of a season that already promises to be extremely exciting.
The South Tyrolean’s first opponent at the Kooyong Classic will be Marc Polmans. He plays at home, being Australian, reason why, presumably, he will have the whole crowd on his side. Provided, of course, that Sinner mania is so powerful that the San Candido native has fans everywhere. He may have some, therefore, in Oceania as well.
Sinner, watch out for him: the Italians send him into a frenzy
At the ranking level, then, there is a fairly substantial difference between the two tennis players who will perform at the prestigious tournament. Polmans is number 116 in the world, which makes us think that Sinner will have no particular problems.
He’ll still have to stay on his toes, however, considering that his Aussie rival proved some time ago to be a tad, shall we say, “fumy.” Last October, as the well-informed will recall, he had purposely hit with the ball the chair judge who was refereeing his match against Italian Stefano Napolitano as part of the Shanghai Masters 1000 qualifiers.
Because of that behavior, which was decidedly unsportsmanlike and unorthodox, he had gotten an immediate disqualification, as a result of which his rival opponent had then entered the main draw directly.