Jannik Sinner has high hopes for the upcoming clay season, but he won't have much time to adapt to clay tennis as it's coming in fast.
The Miami Open is the last hard-court event before the season turns to clay. It's a pretty quick shift, as events already begin the day after the conclusion of the second ATP Masters 1000 tournament of the year.
As the Miami Open winner, Sinner stood on a hard court on Sunday, which gives him about a week before the Monte-Carlo Masters begins, an event he will play. That's not enough time to recover from this run and then get used to clay.
He'll have to practice in Monaco ahead of the event, so it's less than seven days between his last hard-court match and his first practice on clay. That's not easy to handle, but he'll try and do his best because at least he knows the courts in Monaco well.
"Yeah, first of all, you don't have so much time to adapt, because Monaco, I guess we start to practice Thursday the first time. So not even one week to get used to the clay. There are always some strange results usually in Monaco, so let's see what's coming this year."
Sinner has lived in Monaco for a while and generally does really well because the Italian fans come out strongly to support him. His goal for the clay season is pretty simple: He wants to do really well at Roland Garros.
Doing well would be winning it, which isn't that unlikely, but he also has fallback options like the Italian Open in Rome. He crashed out pretty early at Roland Garros last year, but Sinner is a tremendous clay player, and he has been for much of his career.
"For sure, the main goal is Roland Garros, yes, but trying to work slowly into this tournament and trying to play it in the best possible way. Before I have Rome, for me, especially is a really, really important tournament. You know, playing with the home crowd, it's always amazing."
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