Monday, October 14, 2024, 01:23
Yesterday’s Shanghai Masters 1000 final featured three guests of honor who sat together in comfortable red armchairs near the court. It was none other than Roger Federer, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Carlos Alcaraz, with the Swiss sitting between the Valencian coach and his Murcian pupil. The presence of the three did not go unnoticed by the finalists Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner, who had very affectionate words for the former Swiss tennis player and the Spaniards at the trophy ceremony. The Italian won in a final of many carats.
“It’s nice to see you here, Roger,” said Djokovic, who added: “I wish you were here playing with us. It’s probably the first time I play in front of you, a bit of pressure. It is good that you are here, as well as Carlos (Alcaraz) and Juan Carlos (Ferrero),” concluded the veteran Serbian player.
Sinner was not far behind when it came to speaking. «I think Novak already spoke to the public that we have three legends here. I have played against a legend and now I see legends everywhere. I just try to keep up with them,” said the transalpine tennis player, who made everyone present laugh with his occurrence.
Federer has been the special guest of a tournament that he won three times, the last in 2017. As for Alcaraz, he has played this Masters 1000 on Chinese soil, falling in the quarterfinals against the Czech Machac. And he has stayed in Chinese lands, to travel today to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), where this Wednesday he will debut in the Six Kings Slam exhibition tournament. He will face the Danish Holger Rune. And the winner will face Rafa Nadal next Friday.
A solid Sinner
As for the final, in a very divided first set, neither of the two tennis players managed to break their rival’s serve, although in the tie-break Sinner quickly took control, going ahead 5-1 and closing the set with his second set ball. The second set was more favored for the Italian, who took a 40-15 lead in the fourth game, in which Djokovic served. The Serbian saved the first break point with an ace, but could not avoid the second, scored with a backhand from Sinner.
Ahead 3-1 on the scoreboard, the Italian relied on his serve to close the set and win the match after 1 hour and 37 minutes. With this result, Sinner equals the head-to-head against Djokovic at 4-4, after having achieved four victories in the last five meetings between both tennis players. He also ensures that he will finish the year as number 1 in the world, after winning his third Masters 1000 of the course.
But it’s not all good news for Sinner, still dogged by two positive results for clostebol, an anabolic derived from testosterone, in tests carried out last March. In August, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) cleared Sinner after accepting the explanation of accidental contamination. The Italian alleged that the small amounts of clostebol detected came from his physiotherapist, who used an over-the-counter spray to treat a cut on his finger and contaminated the tennis player when massaging him.
But in September, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced that it had filed an appeal against this decision and requested “one to two years” of suspension. “This year has been very, very hard for me (…) in some moments I lost my smile a little,” Sinner said yesterday after beating Djokovic. “It’s never easy to play in those types of circumstances,” he added.
