Is indoor Sinner unbeatable in this form?

0:10Well, hello and welcome to the tennis podcast. We're all here bright eyed and bushy tailed. First thing on a Monday morning, David from Croatia, not quite as early in Croatia, but still early enough to be bright eyed and bushy tailed. David, how are you doing? Yeah, very early because I beat my alarm today so that I could watch highlights of the Seahawks win last night. And that was delightful. And yeah, they're doing better than my other team in the football variety over here, West Bromwich Albion. But yeah, we leave today. So sadly, I've got to pack and go back home. But it's been delightful.

0:52Matt is here Matt I saw your face in the flesh Amir 12 hours ago always good to see you again though yep likewise we had a nice Sunday roast and a successful sporting weekend for my teams Fulham got a win, watched the Bills beat the Chiefs last night I told you it would come round we needed a weekend like this it's been a bad patch Is that what you told us? Or did we tell you? Yeah. Well, we were trying to wrench you out of the depths of your sporting despair. I kept the faith. So we're riding high. We're feeling good. We're feeling positive. We're in our Yannick Sinner era, if you will. He has extended his indoor winning streak to 26 matches, beating Félix Auger Aliassime in the final of the Paris Indoors Masters 1000 event 6-4, 7-6.

1:55Also beat Alexandre Zverev 6-1 in the semi-finals. So collects another Masters 1000 title and returns to world number one. Now, he will lose that world number one spot when his ranking points for winning last year's ATP finals come off, because that is 1500 ranking points. But he can very well get it back at this year's ATP finals. But he is guaranteed to lose it after this week, albeit very potentially getting it back. Clear? Yes. I'm with you there. It is a bit complicated, but basically the facts are, as we stand at the moment, Yannick Sinner is back at world number one and stands a good shot of claiming year end number one still.

2:49Which, given he spent three months of this year, Matt, on the sideline serving a drugs ban, is pretty goddamn extraordinary, isn't it? yes and it's not like he would end the year world number one because he has no rival who had a good year you know Carlos Alcaraz has had an incredible year you know um reaching finals winning titles uh you know to me it feels like Alcaraz has been the best player this year and that that might be unfair um you know when you look at it sinner has reached all four grand slam finals this year in in a way that uh alcaraz hasn't um but i just think you know alcaraz's consistency and the fact that he's been around for the whole year has really marked him out i suppose alcaraz did have a bit of a dip when sinner was not playing right alcaraz didn't rack up the ranking points at Indian Wells and Miami and, you know, through kind of that portion of the season.

3:57But I have to say, Yannick Sinner played like the world number one this week. And if we're talking about indoor tennis this time of the season, these conditions, Yannick Sinner is, I think, the best player in the world. I don't want to go like too hyperbulous, but watching that yesterday, That was like a performance that would have lived with any of like the greats that we've seen over the last 20 years or so. You know, that would have that would have been tough for Djokovic at his prime to handle or Federer at his prime to handle. It was that good, I think, from Sinner. Like he's had this slight vulnerability about him in between points this week.

4:39You know, we've seen him hobbling a bit. We've seen him hunched over at times. We've seen him look a little bit uncomfortable physically. We've seen him get a little bit techy with his team at the sideline. And yet, once the points have started, he's just been breathtakingly good. The improvements he's made on his serve since the US Open are obvious. He's getting a higher percentage in. I think indoors does help with that. But it looks like a potent weapon again, that serve. And then from the baseline, he can hurt you off both wings. he is incorporating some of that variety that he told us he would and yet he thought or he said he might have to accept some losses while he sprinkles that variety in well that's not happening he's continuing to crush everyone and he looks absolutely awesome right now and I thought Orgelio's scene played really really well and yet there was never really a moment where I thought he was going to win Sinner was superb That's it isn't it?

5:40Auger Lassim played so well. And look, if he gets a slice of luck in that tie break, just maybe he's able to take it to a third set. But the fact is, David, that whole match to me looked like watching an analogue and a digital version of a tennis player. Like the golf in level and top level is just frankly enormous, isn't it? Like, Felix Orgelius needed Yannick Sinner to have some sort of spectacular drop-off, really, in order to make that match. Well, in order to stand a chance in that match, because Yannick Sinner, when he's playing like this, is too good for anyone, really, to handle. It was like watching a rerun of a match, you know, something on YouTube.

6:29Well, you know the result, but you just want to marvel at the level that Sinner can play. but never did I think that the result was in doubt. And that is not meant to be disrespectful at all to Felix Ogiali, who is one of the quiet stories of the year, the way he has regrouped after a couple of really tough years where he just hasn't been the factor that he looked like he was going to be. And he's made himself relevant again, and he keeps on turning up in the latter stages of big tournaments and doing his job, doing all he possibly can, and also being ambitious and trying to win these finals and hurt Sinner and push Halkraz.

7:15But I keep going back to the US Open where I felt mildly ticked off by Yannick Sinner when he was talking about, look, I'm not a robot. This takes a lot of work and it's not inevitable. and you could tell he resented the notion and I totally understand why. And yet that's exactly what he makes it feel like because he feels inevitable at the moment, unless it's Alcaraz on the other side of the net or unless it's horrible conditions like we saw in Shanghai, which physically he just couldn't handle. To go off Vienna, winning Vienna the way he did, in a really gruelling final and then just come and just cruise through Paris.

8:02Paris is tough. Just cruise to the title and was never in any danger, never looked like being beaten. I find it pretty startling what he's putting together. I do think that the match between the two of them, if you just watched the match point, you would get a sense of what this match was. Felix playing really well. His newly sort of reinforced backhand, standing up well to the Yannick Sinner backhand, hitting the forehand, trying to open up the court and give himself a shot, and yet ultimately being punished by a superior shot from his opponent. And that just summed up the match. There was a fantastic stat on the coverage that I was watching of percentage of backhands over 80 miles per hour.

8:54and Felix Orgele Asim was at 5 % and Sinner was at 70%. You know, like the difference there is enormous. That's faster than Anisimova even. And Felix is the normal one there, you know. Like the 5 % sounds terrible compared to the 70%. It's fine. It's not terrible at all. It's just that number from Sinner is extraordinary. The pace off both wings, frightening. And yet, as David said, he has cruised to this title. He really has. Off the back of Vienna, just an unreal run and an unreal consistent level that he's producing. And yet, Matt, he doesn't look all that happy, does he? He's sort of villain-era stuff.

9:44He is tetchy. There's that clip that's doing the rounds of him getting really annoyed at his team for not standing up when he broke serve. I break and you're all sitting down. It was very Andy Murray of him, wasn't it? A lot of him is very, very Andy Murray. He's hobbling around like a 70-year-old or like an Andy Murray that's had a hip replacement between the points. And then as soon as he gets into the points, he's, you know, lithe as anything. But he looks like he's struggling or unhappy or tetchy and it's obviously not affecting his tennis at all. But it is the sort of thing where if something...

10:30Look, something may well not go wrong. It's entirely possible he wins the next 12 slams. David might be about to predict that. There's only one break who's doing that. It's the sort of thing where if something does go wrong in the near-ish future or things go off the rails a bit, we would look back and go, well, maybe the signs were there. I do wonder if it's the possible looming uncertainty over Darren Cahill's situation that is causing just a bit of anxiety in Yannick Sinner and in the team. I know that it had originally been, I think it was Yannick Sinner that sort of inadvertently broke it, wasn't it?

11:16that Darren Cahill was going to have to step back at the end of this year to take a break from the travel and the grind of coaching. And it seems like maybe they were trying to reach some kind of arrangement where it wasn't a full break that he was able to stay involved. But I don't quite know what the situation there is. So honestly, that is just a theory on my part. But it's something you just, you put a pin in for now because it's not affecting his tennis at all. But you can't ignore it altogether, I don't think, Matt. No, I think that's fair. I mean, it was only last week, wasn't it? We had quite a big discussion about his cramping and his physical state generally.

12:04And that was, again, a tournament he won. but it did feel like it cost him a bit more in Vienna. You know, Zverev was quite close to beating him in Vienna in a way that he hadn't been for a while. And I do think part of that was Sinner's physical state. It just made him a bit more vulnerable. It's just very rare that it affects him enough, seemingly, for players to be able to expose it and make it an element of the match. He was hunched over at 2-1 in the first set against Ben Shelton in the quarterfinals. And I thought, OK, Shelton, with his physical prowess, maybe he can push this and make this tough for Yannick Sinner.

12:52He didn't get close to be able to make it a factor. Sinner just absolutely blew him away. So watching him, you are constantly having that in your mind. like okay I'm a little bit unsure about Yannick Sinner here and yet he's playing so so well it doesn't appear to be affecting him you know it's not it's not a unique Yannick Sinner thing I mean we've seen say Novak Djokovic I've had similar thoughts about him in the past it's just that Sinner's also able to be so destructive with his ground strokes that he doesn't get involved always in really really torturous grinding rallies He has an ability to just end points and I think help himself sort of physically that way.

13:37Yeah, it's definitely something I'm always going to have in the back of my mind watching Sinner until it either completely goes away or he really starts winning loads of like gruelling five set matches. The thing is, he's not going to play many of those because he's so superior to everyone. The number of times we're going to see that over a year is minimal, I think, unless something dramatic happens. So I don't know what the conclusion is. Yes, it's there, but... It might not matter. It might not matter, yeah. Certainly, like 95 % of the time, it doesn't matter. I think David, he really wants this year end number one now that it's on I think he thought it was off for a while and sort of put it out of his mind you know, nobody could have predicted Alcaraz losing to Karen Norrie but now it's really back on and I'm glad because it gives this stage of the season when everyone's looking for a reason to put their minds and their bodies on the line one last time, it does give it that extra bit of bite.

14:59And I do think it's going to give Yannick Sinner and probably Carlos Alcaraz in Turin as well, that extra bit of bite, because I think they both really want this. Yeah, I would have thought so. And I think it's a pretty impressive regrouping from Sinner post-US Open, because it would be very easy for him to have been, you know, given that he's won these events before and he's won the ATP finals, and, you know, it could have seemed a bit, well, Australia, let's think about that. And so, yeah, probably has helped focus the mind. But I think one of the interesting things is the sheer chasm between the two of them indoors at the end of the season.

15:39It is dramatic at the moment. you know we we we talk about them in the same breath Alcraz and Sinner but they don't look the same player at all at this end end of the season Sinner looks considerably the better until further notice and that's what makes me really interested to see whether Alcraz can do something about that can he get some form going in Turin you know he's got the nice thing is he's got the groups the group matches to kind of play his way in a bit like he did at the US Open in theory um but there's no evidence that that he's getting closer to figuring this out um but yeah that that doesn't look we are searching for interesting things at the moment in men's tennis really that that aren't just a formality because nobody else is getting close

16:31he alcaraz will end the year number one if he goes undefeated in his three round robin matches in Turin or if he reaches the final with at least one round-robin match win. I mean, he'll be doing well to reach the final without one round-robin match win. And those things stand no matter what Yannick Sinner does. If Alcaraz achieves those things, it doesn't matter what Yannick Sinner does. Alcaraz will end the year number one. So would you say that puts Alcaraz in pole position? I mean, Sinner, I think, both of you correct me if I'm wrong, Sinner's the favourite for Turin, but they're both the favourites to reach the final, right?

17:15Because this is so much better than everybody else. And yeah, if Alcaraz reaches the final, he ends the year as number one. Yes. And look, I think the way Zverev looked this week would be good news for Alcaraz, just in terms of, you know, if he were to land in Zverev's group, I think Zverev playing his best indoors could be a problem for Alcaraz. But he looked awful against Yannick Sinner and he talked about how his ankle wasn't right. And then I guess what I'm doing is scanning the field and thinking, right, who could beat Alcaraz? And look, Alcaraz lost to Nori. Nori played very, very well. but you know we've got a field here of players who are better than Cameron Norrie but I expect Alcarez to play better than he did in that match so it's kind of like who's it going to be is it going to be a Taylor Fritz you know I certainly wouldn't expect Alcarez to lose to a Demenor or a Shelton to be honest if Djokovic is in the field like he would potentially be a problem for Alcarez in the group stage if Alcarez needs to get through undefeated as his best route to getting to world number one.

18:36But I don't know whether Novak Djokovic is going to play. So I do think Alcarez is probably going to do it. But, you know, if he plays like he did against Cameron Norrie, then someone will probably take him out. OK, well, this feels like an opportune moment then to get onto the subject of El Race. because Novak Djokovic, even though El Race is run for him and he is confirmed qualified to Turin, he still plays a very significant role in it all. Such a Novak Djokovic thing to do, isn't it? Yeah. Make yourself the main character. Yeah. Prepare yourself for some main character energy here from Novak Djokovic.

19:20So, Félix Auger-Eliassime obviously reaching the final in Paris has very much helped his case for snatching that eighth qualification place for Turin. Currently, we have Carlos Alcaraz qualified, Yannick Sinner qualified, Alexander Zverev qualified, Novak Djokovic qualified, Ben Shelton qualified, Taylor Fritz qualified and Alex de Minoar qualified. Those are your top seven. So we have Felix Auger, Eliassime and Lorenzo Mazzetti vying for that eighth and technically final qualification spot. So Felix Auger-Eliassime has 3 ,845 points and Lorenzo Mazzetti has 3 ,685 points. So that is exactly 200 points separating them.

20:12Felix Auger-Eliassime had entered Mets this week but has withdrawn. So Felix's race is run. he is banking that 200 point lead and he is saying over to you Lorenzo Mazzetti and your living nightmare your waking nightmare because Mazzetti has entered Athens and the 200 point gap means that he has to win the title to qualify for Turin A reminder that Lorenzo Mazzetti hasn't won a title in three years and has a bit of a title winning problem. Another problem is that Novak Djokovic is in the field in Athens and that Novak Djokovic is really, really good. So Novak Djokovic has the potential to torpedo Lorenzo Mazzetti's hopes of qualifying for Turin.

21:15He also has the potential to hand Lorenzo Mazzetti qualification for Turin because here's the kicker, folks. Word on the street is that Novak Djokovic probably won't play Turin. Probably. That's not definite. Nobody knows for sure. But he can't pull out of Turin while he's entered in a tournament and playing in a tournament before Turin. You can't put out of next week's tournament while you're playing in this week's tournament.

21:52So while he's still alive and going in Athens, he will remain in the Turin field. Now, the draw for Turin is done on Friday. So there's every chance that he will be in that draw, even if he intends to pull out eventually of the tournament. And of course, if he does pull out, that renders the race between Felix Auger-Eliassime and Lorenzo Mazzetti redundant because a ninth spot will become open and they will both get in and Lorenzo Mazzetti's nightmare will have been lived for nothing. Perfect summary. so so there we go do we think Novak Djokovic has tipped off Lorenzo Mazzetti about what his plans are that's a very good question they're there in Athens together Lorenzo Mazzetti looks like a corpse Mazzetti would just wouldn't play if he'd been tipped off he just wouldn't bother and it's not Novak Djokovic's start.

23:02No, no, because I think, well, I think what he'd have said, because Novak Djokovic, his family owned that tournament, right? His brother is the tournament director. Novak Djokovic is playing that tournament, presumably. I mean, A, I think it's a chance to get a title because it's a relatively weak field, but also it's his family's tournament he was always going to play. And he obviously wants that tournament to be a success and wants big-name players like Lorenzo Mazzetti. So he could have said, you know, you need to still come and play, but just so you know, I'm going to do you a favour here.

23:39You do me a favour and I'll do you a favour. How many matches does he have to play? It seems to be some suggestion, and that's what happened with Dimonor last year and Belgrade and that final spot and Novak Djokovic. yeah how many matches does Mazzetti have to play David is that your question yeah I'm sort of curious you know alright Novak if I'm going to show up like when can when can I withdraw or do I just have to put a sort of you know decent performance in and then I'm alright can I have a couple of days between at least it is and I know this is a this year problem only because the ATP have changed the rules so that from next year onwards the race for Turin will end after Paris.

24:29So Mets, well, Mets is coming off the calendar, isn't it? But none of this can happen. The standings after Paris will be the standings for Turin. So we've got to enjoy this nonsense while we can, basically. But, I mean, for this year, Novak Djokovic has the potential to really make a hash of things in Turin. Like, they're going to have the draw and media day. They're probably going to have the draw and media day not knowing what the field is. Or maybe everybody kind of behind the scenes will know what the field is, but it won't be able to be said publicly because Novak Djokovic won't have formally withdrawn at that stage.

25:15I think they could have a Svetlana Kaznetsov on their hands here, David. Well, that works out quite well. So let's hope it works out. Did it? Joe Conti was in all the draw photos. I know, but then Kuznetsov became the story of the tournament by having a great run. But yeah, it was a bit awkward. They're going to have to use some much better AI than the Six Kings Slam had and take the official photo and then AI Lorenzo Mazzetti into it at last minute but make sure it actually looks like Lorenzo Mazzetti.

25:56Yeah. Do we think Novak Djokovic is going to play in Turin? Has all of this from Lorenzo Mazzetti been for nothing? I don't really think he is going to, but it's trying to predict what Novak Djokovic is going to do. Yeah, that's it. He didn't look very well, you know. No, last time we saw him, he wasn't fit, was he? No, he looked terrible at six-king slam. I mean, apparently not as bad as Stefanos Tsitsipas, who's one by one written a statement to say he's pulling out of tournaments, whilst he still managed to go and play for 45 minutes at the Six Kings Slam and pick up however many millions. But, yeah, it's, I don't know, Djokovic looks like, I mean, he takes a lot of time off anyway, but he looks like he absolutely needed time off after that thing.

26:48So to play three matches against the best, that's a big ask. Just on Sitsbats, by the way, since you mentioned him, he's obviously pulled out of Athens, a home tournament. He is dropped out of the world's top 30. He is going to be unseeded for the Australian Open. He, David, hasn't played a top 10 opponent all season, which tells you A, he's not been losing to Senna and Alcaraz he's losing to players that he past iterations of Stefanos Tsitsipas would have considered way beneath him and he's not reaching those matches against Senna and Alcaraz or anything like it because he's just not getting to that stage of tournaments I mean, take away that one great week he had in Dubai, take away those 500 ranking points he got there.

27:52And it's an absolute catastrophe of a season. He's in a desperate place. It's a shadow of himself. It's really quite sad to see what's happened to him. I mean, I suppose I take some encouragement from the fact that, although maybe not quite as dramatically bad, Daniel Medvedev wasn't far off for a good eight months of the season and now looks like he's found something. I know he lost to Zverev in the end, but he had two match points. He should have won that match and he beat him the other week. I feel like he should be the example. But the difference is Medvedev's overhauled his team, gone in a new direction.

28:34and he's tried to find a new lease of life. What's Tsitsipas done? Gone back to his dad. I know he's injured as well, so that's a factor. But it's difficult to know where this jump start's going to come for him.

28:52Sad. Yeah, it is sad. I think it's the right decision at the moment that he's skipping these tournaments and not playing. I think he's done a lot of playing through injury when he probably should have been resting and rehabbing on the sidelines, you know. Goran said it out loud, didn't he? Probably not the best. Too loud. Probably too loud. But he made the point that Tsitsipas needs to get his body right. You know, he's not in the physical state of these top, top players. So I hope that that can at least, he can get healthy again. You know, I just hope that that can happen. Yeah, two Tsitsipas's playing in Athens and neither of them Stephanos.

29:41Pavlos partnering Petros in the doubles, I saw. Who is Pavlos? Did we know Pavlos existed before this week? He's the youngest brother. OK, there's also a sister. She never gets a wild card for anything.

30:01okay Pavlos is my new sit-to-past to be annoyed about okay great that's it for part one join us in part two and we'll talk about the WTA finals welcome back to part two of today's tennis podcast where we turn our attention to Riyadh now and the WTA finals which have had their first round of group stage matches. So the results we have so far from the Serena Williams group are Iger Svjontek beating a definitely not entirely fit to Madison Keyes, 6-1, 6-2, and Elena Rabachner beating a not-looking-like-she's-in-title-winning form, Amanda Anitimova, 6-3, 6-1. Should we just get out ahead of this? and just sort of address our credibility here because, look, it's a round-robin format.

31:05There's still time. Our predictions aren't dead. But that was a worrying Amanda Inisimova, Matt, wasn't it, that we saw against Elena Rabakina. That wasn't the player we were all expecting to see. No. I thought it would be in Anissimova's favour that she was rested and hadn't had to play much in the last few weeks. You know, coming up against a Rabakina who'd been scrapping to get her way into the field. Actually, what happened is it was the total opposite. And Anissimova looked a little bit rusty and not as sharp as she has done for most of the last few months. and Rabatkin have looked totally matched tight and played the kind of tennis that we've seen a little bit over the last few weeks.

32:02I think of the performance to beat Paolini in Ningbo and I think of the performance to beat Pagula at the Billie Jean King Cup finals. Just pretty unplayable. I think if I'm going to give... If I'm going to try and rescue our prediction and have some kind of confidence for Nisimova going forward in that I think the Rabatkaner performance was the standout performance so far of anyone in the field. I think that was the best tennis anyone's played. I think there's a chance that Anissimova, you know, could settle here. You know, I think I probably slightly underestimated first match ever at the WTA finals.

32:42And there's a whole lot of sort of promotion and media and pre-tournament stuff that you have to do at the WTA finals that you don't have to do at a regular tour event. And I think there's just more attention on you. The field's smaller. It's different. It feels different. The vibe of the event is different. And I think maybe that took some getting used to. And maybe it will take another addition. Maybe it's not going to just come in the second match for Anissimova. But the hope is that she can settle. She plays Keyes now, who, as you said, looked pretty rusty herself. has got this service motion that she's trying out, went straight to the practice court after losing to Svantec.