Jannik Sinner has continued his Australian Open title defence after beating Holger Rune to reach the quarter-finals.
Sinner has matched John McEnroe after continuing his dominance on hard courts.
In his last match, Sinner had spoken about wanting to improve his net play, but once again won 67% of his points when coming forward against Rune.
Rune is the second player to take a set off Sinner at the Australian Open this year, with Tristan Schoolkate also doing so in the second round.
Watched on by his coaching team, including Darren Cahill who is leaving Sinner at the end of 2025, they saw their player struggle in the hot conditions in Melbourne.
Jannik Sinner knew that he would struggle during Australian Open fourth round
Despite overcoming the nearly 90 degree Fahrenheit heat in Melbourne, there was certainly concern for Sinner as he appeared unwell during the match.
When speaking to Jim Courier, who Novak Djokovic refused an interview with, Sinner explained that he had an odd feeling coming into the match, but was full of praise for the Australian Open.
“This morning was a very strange morning,” said Sinner. “I did not even warm up today, so trying to go on court as quickly as I could, I knew in my mind that I would struggle today.
“I have to say that game wise, I played well today, I served very well, it was quality shots which gave me confidence to fight on and, of course, the time off the court – me and the doctor talked a little bit. It helped me today and it showed this tournament has great organisation. It’s an awesome tournament, they really take care of the players and we are all very happy to be here and compete.”
Jannik Sinner takes lengthy medical timeout and breaks the net
After clearly struggling in the conditions, Sinner requested a doctor and physio at 3-2 up in the third set.
This was then followed up by an off-court medical timeout that lasted more than 10 minutes before Sinner returned to the court.
Despite most of the attention being on the world number one, he was not the only player to request medical intervention.
With Sinner gearing up to serve out the third set, Rune took a medical timeout of his own and received treatment on his right knee.
However, these medical breaks were not the biggest disruption during the match, after Sinner inadvertently broke the net with a first serve.
The net took nearly 20 minutes to fix, before players returned to court to complete the fourth and what turned out to be the final set.
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