Jannik Sinner suffered a nightmare end to his impressive Cincinnati Open run after retiring during his final against Carlos Alcaraz.
Sinner apologised after retiring from the final in Cincinnati, which he did after just 23 minutes of play in hot conditions.
The ATP number one was trailing Alcaraz 5-0 in the first set of the Cincinnati Open final before calling a doctor onto court to treat his illness.
Sinner retired shortly after, with his upcoming US Open mixed doubles appearance in New York now in doubt.
The Italian played the Cincinnati Open final on Monday, and has been scheduled to play with Katerina Siniakova at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday.
Jannik Sinner confirms pre-US Open plans after illness in Cincinnati
Wildcard pairing Sinner and Siniakova are set to play Belinda Bencic and Alexander Zverev in round one, but that partnership could be severely disrupted amid Sinner’s illness.
The world number one discussed the US Open shortly after losing to Alcaraz, saying of his excitement for the event: “Yeah, I love Grand Slams a lot. These are the main tournaments for my season and for my career.
“So US Open is going to be a tough tournament, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to it. If I’m ready, physically and mentally, I will be ready to push.
“So as I said, now a couple of days of recovery, and then, you know, we get again back to work, and hopefully we’ll be ready. So for sure, the main goal here in the US.”
Jannik Sinner shares what he plans to work on for the US Open
Sinner looks likely to instead start his tournament in the main draw, which gets underway in New York on Sunday.
He is the top seed at the hard court Grand Slam, a competition he won in 2024 with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 final win over Taylor Fritz.
| Year | Result |
| 2019 | First round |
| 2020 | First round |
| 2021 | Fourth round |
| 2022 | Quarterfinal |
| 2023 | Fourth round |
| 2024 | WON |
Along with his plans, the defending champion shared what he plans to work on before starting his singles title defence, saying: “I feel like the serve and serve percentage, we will work a lot on that.
“The physical part, of course, as we saw today, I need to recover, but also improve. And yeah, everything together you know?
“You try to take out every two point whatever percentage trying to get better. So we will aim to do that and yeah, then hopefully I will be ready.”
The physical aspect is arguably the most important area which Sinner must focus on right now, with his overall game having looked sharp in Cincinnati.
Playing his first tournament since winning Wimbledon, the four-time Grand Slam champion beat Daniel Elahi Galan, Gabriel Diallo, Adrian Mannarino, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Terence Atmane before eventually falling to Alcaraz.
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