Jannik Sinner rarely had to go really long against Kyle Edmund. © APA / afp / MARTIN KEEP
What a start for Jannik Sinner in his 13th Grand Slam tournament! The sextner cleared the first hurdle in Melbourne in no time at all and didn’t give his opponent the slightest chance.
16 January 2023
From: fop
Jannik Sinner’s lesson in world-class tennis lasted less than two hours, and then it was over for Kyle Edmund. The world ranking 16. won confidently 6:4, 6:0, 6:2. It is the 1000th victory of a tennis player from Italy in a Grand Slam tournament and at the same time Sinner’s first big exclamation point in this young season.
It was clear from the start that Sinner would be the clear favourite. After all, the Brit, who was number 14 in the world and reached the semi-finals in Australia five years ago, is only just beginning to work his way back up from position 583 after countless injuries. Most recently he had to sit out for 20 months. The South Tyrolean came in very inconvenient for him. Sinner needed something to fine-tune his forehand. But at the latest after a double fault to 4:6 in the first set it was all over for Edmund.
Kyle Edmund’s performance in Melbourne was short-lived. © APA / afp / MARTIN KEEP
At the beginning of the second section, Sinner whirled away. He increased the speed from rally to rally, threw the forehand balls into the corners with incredible precision and was extremely safe on the serve. At the same time, Edmund made the fatal attempt to match Sinner’s pace. The consequence? He ran out of breath, he was so mentally stricken that he wobbled a lot during service and now didn’t convert even the simplest balls.
Sinner landed no fewer than eleven games in a row. Only when the score was 6: 4, 6: 0, 4: 0 did he let the 28-year-old from the island play again. He shortened it to 2:4 with his second breakball, but things didn’t get really exciting afterwards. Only an hour and 56 minutes had been played when Sinner scored his sixth match point.
The dream duel is approaching
Thus, the 21-year-old Pusterer is approaching a possible meeting with Italy’s second mega talent, the Tuscan Lorenzo Musetti, who is a year younger. While he still has two hurdles to overcome, Sinner has to clear either the French Gregoire Barrere (ATP 83) or the Argentine Tomas Etcheverry (79) in the second round. The South Tyrolean won his only duel with Barrere two years ago in Marseille after a hard fight in three sets, he has never played against Etcheverry. The second round game is expected to take place on Wednesday.
