By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday October 2, 2020
It’s not to supposed to be this easy for a teenager. You don’t just waltz into Paris and reach the second week without the loss of a set on your Roland Garros debut. No. It just shouldn’t happen that way.
But that is what Jannik Sinner, just barely 19 years of age, has accomplished this week at Roland Garros. After stunning David Goffin, the No.11 seed in the first round, Sinner has proceeded to back that win up with straight sets slayings of Benjamin Bonzi and Federico Coria to set a round of 16 clash with sixth-seeded Alexander Zverev.
Count this kid out at your own peril.
Sinner, a 19-year-old from Northern Italy, where he grew up as a youth ski racer, has slalomed through the draw to become the youngest player to reach the round of 16 at Roland Garros since Novak Djokovic in 2006.
And how did things turn out for Djokovic?
Sinner is playing in his fourth Grand Slam and he’s a very astute obverver of the sport and of his own specific strengths and shortcomings. Rather than treat this spectacular run as a cause for celebration he’s looking at it like a school trip. He told reporters after Friday’s 6-3 7-5 7-5 win over Coria that there’s so many things he needs to improve.
He’s not here to celebrate—he’s here to learn.
“I mean, first of all you have to think match after match,” he said. “I mean I've played a great first match round against David, which gave me a little bit of confidence, for sure. But it's tough, as I said, it's not about winning in straight sets or winning in five sets, obviously it's better to win in three sets, but I have improve even my performance after three sets, for sure. Like in the US Open I lost in five sets, so I still have to learn very much about playing Grand Slams.”
Sinner says he needs to work on his net game, and he tried to approach as much as possible against Coria because the conditions were so slow that there was really no other way to end points.
He says it’s an area that he really needs to improve.
Incredible. He’d rather pick his game apart than smile and just be thrilled that he’s earned €189,000 ($220,000) for nine sets of tennis, and that’s commendable.
“You can learn everything, I mean just trying to improve day after day,” he said. “I mean obviously tomorrow I go on court and trying to improve every shot, which is the main goal. Obviously playing match after match that's important as well. Putting that what you're doing on practice sessions, trying to put it in the match, so that's what I'm trying to do.”