Jannik Sinner was having a really good time against Andrey Rublev at the 2024 Australian Open, but he had some moments of anxiety after feeling something in his stomach.
Sinner arrived in Melbourne as one of the dark horse favorites to win the event. The Italian was widely considered to be the likeliest to win after Novak Djokovic, and so far, it's been going really well for him.
He won all of his matches without any issues, which happened in the match against Andrey Rublev as well. He took the opening set and then won a very close second set to finally win the third set, keeping it in straight sets.
All of that was great: his tennis was great, his game plan worked well, and he finished healthy, kind of. The Italian touched his stomach a few times as if he were in pain, which caused some concern with his team.
They were pictured looking somewhat worried for him at times, but Sinner kept it cool. He had a stone-cold expression on his face without any particularly painful grimacing, but he touched his abdomen a few times as if he was experiencing some issues there.
The play didn't suffer too much as he kept going after that, but it was a tense moment because finishing this run with an injury could be devastating. He's about to face Novak Djokovic in the next round, and that's going to be quite interesting as both are playing really well, and their previous matches have been spectacular.
Sinner actually beat Djokovic two out of three times in their last three matches, so many assume he can do it again. That would be quite spectacular if he could do it, but he won't be able to do it if he's not fully healthy, but Sinner seemed to be confident in his body after the match.
"No. Obviously it's late now, by the time I get to sleep. But tomorrow I'm gonna hit half an hour, 45 minutes, really late of the day, just to touch the ball a little bit. Then after, you know, trying to sleep as much as possible, trying to recover. And that's it. I feel quite confident too that my body is gonna recover in the best possible way. I hope for that."