Jannik Sinner admits he doesn’t know how much damage has been done to his wrist after a nasty fall in his epic defeat against Carlos Alcaraz in the Indian Wells semi-finals.
Alcaraz’s 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 win ended Sinner’s 19-match winning streak and ended the Italian’s flawless 16-0 start to 2024, with the quality and drama of the latest meeting between the two young guns at the top of the men’s game living up to it’s billing in the grand manner.
Yet there was a concerning moment for Sinner in the third set, as he took a tumble in one of many high-octane exchanges and appeared to hurt his wrist.
The Italian quickly grabbed his wrist after the fall and had a pained expression on his face.
Alcaraz quickly checked to see how serious the injury was and Sinner was stretching out the problem for the rest of the match.
It is hard to know whether the problem affected Sinner and contributed to his eventual defeat, but when Alcaraz asked him how his wrist was as they shook hands at the net, Sinner replied: “I don’t know. We will see tomorrow.”
The problem may well put a question mark over Sinner’s participation in the Miami Open, which gets underway in Florida next week.
It was not the only injury concern for Sinner, who stretched out his calf muscle at the start of the second set and appeared to be struggling with his fitness as Alcaraz ran away with a quick-fire third set.
Sinner will be eager to play in Miami as this defeat against Alcaraz ended his hopes of ousting the Spaniard from the world No 2 ranking.
In addition, Sinner also has plenty of ranking points to defend in Miami after his run to the final in that tournament last year, which included a semi-final win against Alcaraz.
Sinner looked set to run away with the match after a one-sided first set, but Alcaraz highlighted why he was able to snap back.
“I stayed strong mentally. That’s a really important part of this game,” said Alcaraz.
“You have to be strong mentally if you want to overcome these kind of matches, come back from a set down, playing against someone that’s playing an unbelievable game.
“I’m really happy with the things I did. I changed my style a bit. I changed my game a bit. It worked very very well. Really really happy to beat Jannik and to be in a final again.
“I had to defend better than I did in the first set. I had to put more balls in, try to stay strong on the court… I changed my return style.
“I was more on the back of the court, putting some returns in, getting myself more in the rallies.”
The win continued Alcaraz’s incredible record at Indian Wells, as he became only the third player under 21 to reach back-to-back men’s singles finals at Indian Wells after Boris Becker (1987-88) and Novak Djokovic (2007-08).
Also aged 20 and 361 days, Alcaraz is the youngest player to achieve 11 consecutive men’s singles match wins at Indian Wells since the event was first run in 1974.
Sinner may have made all the headlines over the last few months, but the original wonder kid of the next generation of tennis superstars has now struck back.