Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner will return to Europe this Tuesday. A tournament cancellation is causing a stir there, especially in France and Italy.
30 January 2024
From: fop
Actually, Jannik Sinner should have played at the “Open 13 Provence” in Marseille from next Monday. But that won’t happen: the 22-year-old has backed down after his first Grand Slam success. After long tournament appearances, like Sinner’s most recent one in Melbourne, cancellations of this kind are quite common in the industry. Nevertheless, the news apparently met with little understanding in Marseille.
On their social media channels, the tournament organizers wrote in French “Sinner snobe l’Open 13 Provence”, which means in an undertone that Sinner is ignoring or rejecting the tournament. Those responsible later took back this choice of words and added: “In Marseille we tend to be hotheaded.” Australian Open semi-finalist Alexander Zverev is being discussed as a replacement for Sinner, who withdrew from the tournament in Marseille last year due to flu .
Speculation about TV appearance
In any case, Sinner’s cancellation of the tournament is not only raising eyebrows in France, but also in Italy, which is now crazy about tennis. There, the organizers of Italy’s largest TV event, the renowned Festival di Sanremo, are desperately trying to get Sinner to appear on stage. The music show will take place next week, at the same time as the actually planned tournament performance in Marseille.
In any case, Sinner’s appearance in Sanremo is just as uncertain as his participation in other media and sponsor events to which he was invited en masse after his triumphal march Down Under.
On Thursday with the President
The only thing that is certain is that on Thursday Sinner and Italy’s Davis Cup team will be welcomed by President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The meeting was actually supposed to take place immediately after the Davis Cup triumph in December, but had to be postponed for scheduling reasons. Now the young man from Sesto can present himself to the head of state as the newly crowned Grand Slam champion.