LONDON — World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is feeling optimistic about defending his Wimbledon title Wednesday after sweating through an exhibition match in a heat wave and admitting he was tested after feeling unwell at Roland Garros.
The Italian star has yet to play a tour-level event ahead of Monday’s grass-court Grand Slam, so a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Cam Norrie in sweltering west London will be enough.
“It was very hot, but I felt fine,” Sinner told reporters.
The Italian star’s appearance at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic comes less than a month after he suffered a stunning second-round exit at the French Open, suffering from dizziness.
“We did some tests. We tried to understand what happened,” he said. “We have come to a very good conclusion.”
Wednesday’s match against the south of England took place as the National Weather Service issued a “red alert” for extreme heat.
“Like Cam said, it was a very hot day,” Sinner said in an on-court interview. “Exhibition matches are good because we want to try some things and get as good a result as possible for next week.”
When asked what he was trying, Sinner smiled and replied, “I don’t know.”
Early Wednesday morning at the All England Club, Sinner wore a cooling vest during practice. In the match with Nolley, he did not use an ice pack like in the past.
The afternoon temperature in Fulham, where the grass-court event was held, was 33 degrees Fahrenheit with a light breeze. Temperatures at Wimbledon on Monday are expected to be a much more manageable 75 degrees.
In Paris, Sinner took a two-set lead in the third set, 5-1, but lost to Juan Manuel Cerundro 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1. During the match, the temperature on Court Philippe-Chatrier soared to 90 degrees, and Sinner reached for multiple bags of ice, clearly struggling to cool down.
Sinner, who has suffered from heat and cramps, did not blame it solely on the heat after the loss. “I think a lot of things came together to cause this problem, and now I need time to process what went wrong,” he said at the time.
A year ago, at a grass-court major tournament, Sinner defeated Carlos Alcaraz in the final 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to win his first Wimbledon title. Alcaraz will miss this tournament due to a wrist injury.
Heat impacts Wimbledon qualifying tournament
Due to heat warnings, ball boys and girls for Wednesday’s Wimbledon qualifying tournament were forced to stay home. The All England Club said their duties were carried out by “our court services team, all of whom are adults”.
The club also announced on Wednesday that there was a temporary power outage in parts of the Roehampton qualifying venue, resulting in “electronic line calling systems not functioning”. Heat is investigated as a possible cause of the power outage.
