Jannik Sinner shares what he was saying to his team before his match against Grigor Dimitrov at the French Open

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Jannik Sinner revealed the difficult period he went through before playing the French Open.

There were doubts surrounding the fitness of the 22-year-old after he withdrew from May’s Madrid Open and did not play the subsequent Italian Open in front of his home fans.

However, he was able to recover from a hip injury in time to try and win his first Roland Garros title and is now in the semi-finals.

He defeated Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets to reach the last four but in a post match interview the soon-to-be new World number one commented on how close he was to not being on court.

Jannik Sinner came through a tough period to be playing at Roland Garros

Due to his hip problem, it was uncertain whether Sinner would participate at Roland Garros this year. The clay court Grand Slam has been his least successful so far after just making it to the semi-finals for the first time this year.

But during an appearance on Eurosport, Sinner revealed he has surprised himself with his progress in Paris and revealed what he told his team before defeating Dimitrov.

“It was a very tough period. I was sick for quite a long time. I didn’t touch a racket for nearly three weeks, which is quite a lot before a grand slam,” the Australian Open champion said.

“I had nine days to prepare for it, the first days I went very slowly, because of the hip and the general health wasn’t where I wanted to be.

“Before the match I talked with the team and we said ‘look, if we would have known that 10 days before we would play here and be in the quarters of a grand slam everyone would have signed’. It was tough.”

When will Jannik Sinner become the new World number one?

Following his fourth victory in five meetings against Dimitrov, Sinner discovered he will become the new World number one on Monday when the updated rankings are released.

This was guaranteed when the current number one Novak Djokovic announced his withdrawal from the French Open due to a knee injury.

He is the first Italian man to reach the summit of men’s tennis and is just the second player after Carlos Alcaraz born in the 2000s to do so.

“What can I say? First of all it is every player’s dream to become No. 1 in the world,” Sinner said during his on court interview. “In the other way, seeing Novak retiring here I think is disappointing. I wish him a speedy recovery.”