Guido MonacoEurosport commentator, focused on Jannik Sinner’s current form during the last episode of Tennis Mania, broadcast on the OA Sport YouTube channel: “Let’s clear the field of the word crisis. He has some difficulties in terms of peak form, compared to the version at the end of the year and the one in Australia: it’s a very natural thing that he is managing well overall. The argument about opponents he doesn’t know and who throw everything could apply to O’Connell and Machac. Despite the slow starts and his poor form, he still comes out well and it seems to me to be further evidence of his strength and the fear he instills in his opponents: you go on the pitch against him and you know that sooner or later he will get on top of you. Maybe Medvedev will be able to take advantage of any declines more than him. We are talking about a player who even if he never won a match again he would be qualified for the ATP Finals, he is doing something fantastic. No crisis, we count how many times he loses serve in a match and he replied that tennis is like that, sometimes there are periods in which you start better and sometimes worse“.
Guido Monaco then continued with his analysis: “Medvedev has it in his DNA to start slowly, he has mini breaks while Alcaraz overwhelms you when he’s in form. Sinner usually starts well. They are delicate mechanisms, difficult to explain. Tennis has very particular psychological mechanisms, you are always there talking to yourself and then there is an opponent. Tennis eats away at your nerves and the fact that Sinner manages to manage all this, to win, to help people in the audience, to caress children, is fantastic. The match against Griekspoor is a nice crossroads of the season because that is a strong opponent and he wasn’t playing his best tennis: you know if you lose to Griekspoor after Alcaraz you arrive in Europe a little bruised, now if he loses to Medvedev he will show great results again things on red earth“.
The expert also made a prediction for the semifinal of the Masters 1000 in Miami between Sinner and Medvedev: “Medvedev wins because not only Sinner learns from defeats and Medvedev gave very clear proof of this in the Melbourne final. At the same time, if he didn’t win in Melbourne, turning his tennis upside down, then I struggle to understand how he will win here. He won’t play a white-armed game like he did in Melbourne, or he won’t do it with that continuity and quality, but I think a pre-turning point game for Sinner will emerge, that is, a good battle. If a more physical and head-to-head match comes out then there is a 55-45 or 60-40 in favor of Medvedev. Or maybe Sinner finds his tennis again after the rest and maybe things can be reversed. Medvedev has a slight advantage, I’m curious to understand how he will interpret the match, this time there won’t be any surprise effect. The games of these phenomena are played on details that are also difficult to predict. Sinner can play calmly, Medvedev feels the pressure because if he loses again he becomes a real pest, in fact he already is. He lost four consecutive matches against Sinner after winning six: this match has a crazy weight, but he is an extremely intelligent player and now it weighs on him that he hasn’t won a tournament since May last year“.
Guido Monaco then focused on a parallel between Sinner and Alcaraz: “Sinner was born continuously, Sinner and continuity are two words that go together, he is always on track even when he is in difficulty. Injuries aside, I have always seen Alcaraz as almost unplayable when he was fit. I would wait a bit before saying that he is so discontinuous, certainly due to his characteristics Sinner is destined to have greater continuity than Alcaraz. Alcaraz has more margin than the others and has less need to be 100% than the others. What Alcaraz has done in just a few years of his career is amazing and it’s not like six months of Sinner erase or make you forget: as soon as he puts things back in order he is stronger, not only than Sinner, but than everyone, by a margin. I’m not saying that Alcaraz will have the same mental dominance over tennis as Nadal and Djokovic, but he is so strong tennis-wise and physically, he gets to the ball half a second earlier than the others, he has a physicality that has never been seen on the tennis court, mother nature poured everything she could into him, he goes so fast that the opponents’ ball seems slow. Sinner is just below. Their rivalry will always be very balanced because this speed of Alcaraz is balanced by the ball speed of Sinner who has no one“.
