Sinner Overcomes Heat & Cramps | ATP Tour

ATP Tour

Between cramps, Sinner resists the fiercest sun in Australia

The Italian will face Darderi in the round of 16

January 24, 2026

The Melbourne summer will be a punishment on anyone’s shoulders.

Jannik Sinner reached the fourth round of the Australian Open this Saturday with a red face, surviving a blazing sun on the Rod Laver Arena. The current champion saw his authority questioned until he managed to beat the American Eliot Spizzirri 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, against whom he came back from a set and a set break before breathing in the shadows. The warning was clear and forceful for the entire locker room: the high temperatures promise to equalize forces and not even the best will escape the equation.

The No. 2 of the PIF ATP Rankings, a man raised on the snow of the Alps, suffered in a day conditioned by the thermometer since the day before. If the organization had advanced the start time on the main courts, taking advantage of the respite that the morning would offer, Sinner had to start competing in the central hours of the day, with a mountain of degrees lying on each shot.

The overwhelm soon became evident. Jannik, who dominated the first set 4-2, conceded five consecutive games against a Spizzirri ready to empty itself in the oven. The American, a former college player in temperate Texas, broke a streak of 27 consecutive sets caught by the Italian, suddenly converted into an earthly player.

Sinner once again encountered a familiar path: the suffering before glory in a Grand Slam tournament. With the recent memory of Wimbledon, where he lifted the cup after suffering unspeakable losses against Grigor Dimitrov, who retired due to injury after beating him in the first two rounds, Jannik held on to the court, accepting the ordeal. Far from being a balm, winning the second set was just the prelude to the extreme on the Rod Laver Arena.

The peak of stress reached the court in the third set, a partial that took them to the limit on both sides of the net. The momentum of Spizzirri, capable of leading the score 3-1, was met with the agony of a persistent Sinner, prey to cramps before redeeming himself in a truce. The extreme heat protocol of the Australian Open, governed by parameters such as air temperature, radiation, humidity and wind speed, forced the match to be stopped short, the roof of the center court to be closed and the competition, hit by unforgiving conditions, to take a break. A miracle that Jannik held with both hands, turning the set in his favor upon the restart.

In a day guided by the mercury, the regulations forced the game to be stopped for 10 minutes before the fourth round, which became another mountain to climb for the Italian after taking refuge in the locker room. As if it were law in a match against the current, where he was behind in all the sets, Jannik once again recovered in the face of adversity (1-3) until securing a victory that was always in the air. Something unusual for the champion of the last two editions.

After overcoming the first three obstacles of the tournament, Sinner will set his mind on the second week of competition, the one that turns great players into members of history. The Italian will look for a ticket to the quarterfinals against his compatriot Luciano Darderi, immersed in the best Grand Slam of his life and winning 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 against the 15th seed Karen Khachanov. The duel, with Lorenzo Musetti also in competition, will illustrate a golden moment in the history of Italian tennis, which for the first time has placed three figures in the fourth round of the tournament.

Sinner’s penance keeps alive his option to make history in Melbourne, where he longs to complete a milestone of little precedent. The Italian wants to lift his third consecutive cup at the Australian Open, something only achieved by the highest historical champion Novak Djokovic in the entire Open Era (since 1969). A feat, of course, where difficult days also make up the service record.

Did you know that…?
Jannik Sinner aims to become the fifth man in the Open Era to win three Australian Open singles titles. The Italian, champion in the 2024 and 2025 editions, seeks to follow in the footsteps of Novak Djokovic (10), Roger Federer (6), Andre Agassi (4) and Mats Wilander (3) on the courts of Melbourne.