Jannik Sinner was given a brutal draw at the 2024 Paris Masters, and he was honest when assessing his chances during the pre-tournament press conference.
The 23-year-old Italian is the World No. 1 player on the ATP Tour at the moment. He's also guaranteed to finish the year as the World No. 1, and as such, he's, of course, also the top seed at the 2024 Paris Masters, which is the last ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
The seeding, however, sometimes doesn't mean anything else than a number next to the player's name, and that could be said about the Sinner's case in the French capital.
Like all the Top 8 seeds, he has a first-round BYE, but already in the second round, the Paris Masters draw gave the top-ranked player the winner of the match between Ben Shelton and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Given Shelton's talent and Auger-Aliassime's indoor hard-court qualities, there wasn't any good outcome for Sinner, who would just have to await the winner of this match and show his best tennis in the second round of the tournament.
Obviously, he was asked about the draw during his pre-tournament press conference, and he recognized the qualities of both of his possible opponents.
"Yeah, very tough draw. Very, very difficult draw, especially here on these courts. You know, big servers are very tough. Yeah, it's a very, very tough draw."
"It's going to be very difficult against Ben. It's very, very difficult in any case. And against Felix, I never won. So, you know, it's going to be a very tough one. You know, I'm looking forward to it."
However, since he talked about the draw, the situation changed a bit. Auger-Aliassime withdrew from the tournament, relieving the 23-year-old Italian of one brutal choice for a second-round match.
It seems like Sinner might have also anticipated that or just coincidentally mentioned that 'anything can happen' and 'draw can open up,' which happened in this case with the Canadian's withdrawal.
"But, you know, we go day by day. Then everything can happen. The draw can open up sometimes, or, you know, you never know what's coming. I try to prepare in the best possible way for the first-round match."
Sinner also mentioned that he wants to focus only on himself and his game. He mentioned that he wasn't particularly successful in Paris in the past, and his results proved that.
In 2021, he lost already in his first match at the tournament to Carlos Alcaraz. In 2022, Sinner was stunned by Marc-Andrea Huesler and last year, the Italian player won his first-round match against Mackenzie McDonald, but he had to withdraw before his second-round match.
"I'm focused about myself, and hopefully I can raise the level from the last two years I came here, which I have struggled a little bit here on this court. So let's see."
Now, he will hope to avoid the same faith, as his fitness looked questionable at times during his most recent tournament, which was the Six Kings Slam in Riyadh.
0 Comments