Jannik Sinner has seemingly agreed to play the 2024 Rotterdam Open, which begins on February 12th and runs till the 18th.
The ATP 500 event in the Netherlands will commemorate its 51st anniversary this year and has received a massive boost that newly-crowned Australian Open champion Sinner will honor his commitment to play at the tournament.
Sinner and Daniil Medvedev contested this year's Australian Open final. The Italian had cruised through the draw, dropping just one set en route to the championship match, and had defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic in the semifinal.
Medvedev, for his part, played a trio of five-set matches just to get to the final, where he would be stretched to another five-setter despite holding a two-sets-to-love lead. The Russian set the record for the most sets played in a Grand Slam and spent the most hours on a court during one tournament.
With such a high level of mileage, Medvedev will not compete in Rotterdam, where he defeated Sinner to win the event last season. As such, Sinner will now be instilled as the top seed in the 51st edition of the tournament and could become the World No. 3 at the end of the week.
This will be Sinner's first tournament after winning the Australian Open. He withdrew from playing in the Marseille Open, which is taking place this week. The 22-year-old shared a picture of his training session at the Monte-Carlo Country Club with the caption "Soon Rotterdam."
There were doubts that Sinner might elect not to play until the spring hard court swing in the USA, but he has allayed such fears for the tournament organizers in Rotterdam.
Additionally, Sinner will now have a massive following in Italy and all over the world after his social media followers crossed the 2 million mark on Instagram and entered the Top 5 most-followed active men's tennis players list.
Sinner will be one of four Top 10 players competing in Rotterdam, along with Andrey Rublev, Holger Rune, and Hubert Hurkacz. Players like Alex de Minaur and Grigor Dimitrov will have the chance to break the world's Top 10 during the week.