Jannik Sinner ‘not one of the top favourites for Roland Garros’ claims former No.1
Jannik Sinner made a strong start to his clay court season yesterday, but former world No.1 Andy Roddick does not believe the Italian is one of the ‘top favourites’ for Roland Garros.
Sinner beat Sebastian Korda, 6-1 6-2, in an hour and 16 minutes to progress to the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters.
The world No.2 has only lost one match this year, to Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells, but Roddick believes that Sinner’s game may be ‘thwarted’ by the clay courts.
“Clay is going to be Sinner’s most challenging surface,” the American wrote in his Betway column. “What he does naturally well, bullying off the baseline, is thwarted by clay more than anything else, so he’s not going to be one of the top two favourites heading to Roland Garros and his rivals are probably welcoming the change.”
Roddick expanded on this, revealing that he backed Novak Djokovic and the aforementioned Alcaraz over Sinner at the Paris major.
“I still like Novak and I love what Carlos does on clay. I think he’s going to win a lot of French Open titles,” claimed Roddick. “We’ll see if that starts this year or not, but I certainly like that transition for him. Alex[ander] Zverev is another who has always performed really well on clay and is underserved in that conversation that is largely dominated by four names.
Enjoy the process pic.twitter.com/NtjGkK1yrd
— Jannik Sinner (@janniksin) April 7, 2024
Despite not being seen as one of the favourites for Roland Garros, Sinner will continue his clay court season at the Monte Carlo Masters this afternoon against Jan-Lennard Struff.
Inside the baseline…
It is probably understandable that Jannik Sinner is not seen as one of the top two favourites for Roland Garros, given that he has not surpassed the quarter-finals at the tournament and Novak Djokovic has won it three times including last year. That being said, if Sinner has a strong lead-up to Roland Garros that could cause the likes of Andy Roddick to alter their opinions, especially as it is not currently clear how severe Carlos Alcaraz’s right arm injury is.
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