Jannik Sinner in steamroller format gets off to a flying start in the Six Kings Slam, an exhibition tournament scheduled from today to Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In the first match of the day the 23 year old from Sesto Pusteria, number one in the world, he beat the Russian Daniil Medvedev, number 5 in the world ranking, in two sets, 6-0, 6-3, and tomorrow, in the semi-final, he will face Novak Djokovic. Just to make things clear immediately, the Italian opened the match with a break and thanks to the Russian’s many errors he quickly reached 4-0. Medvedev first gave his rival 5-0 with two double faults, then wasted a break point in the sixth and thus lost the set to zero. In the second match, Sinner won the break in the fifth game and from 3-2, also taking advantage of an increasingly foul and nervous Russian, he completed the work up to the final 6-3.
Following the second quarter-final, the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune (the Dane is the only one among the protagonists who has not yet won a Slam): the match will designate Rafa Nadal’s opponent in the semi-final, who has already announced his retirement at the end of the season after the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga. Whatever happens on the fast track of ‘The Venuè’ – where the six participants compete for a very rich prize pool: 13.5 million dollars (around 12.4 million in euros), of which almost half are six (six, 5.5 in euro) destined only for the winner -, in a press conference on the eve of his test, Rafa Nadal paid homage to the future dominators of the scene, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. «There are many strong young players who are playing very well – said the Majorcan champion -, Carlos and Jannik, especially, are winning Slams and Masters and are building incredible numbers. I wish them the best as they continue to move forward, they will be the stars of the future if they manage to stay intact and have an extraordinary career.” Even if on the pitch the Italian does not seem to be affected too much, the doping issue continues to hover over him, after Wada’s decision to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) against the acquittal for the ‘Clostebol case’ decided by International tennis integrity agency (Itia), accepting the thesis of involuntary contamination. And the Tas itself today disclosed the reasons for the sentence relating to another tennis player, the Romanian Simona Halep, sentenced in August 2022 to four years to nine months for testing positive for the banned drug Roxadustat. The former world no.1 appealed to the Tas, which last March reduced the sentence to nine months, allowing her to return to playing. In the reasoning, the Lausanne judges, while accepting the theory of unconscious hiring, ask themselves “why in such a highly professional environment questions linked to possible anti-doping problems are entrusted to people who have no experience in this sector”, underlining “the careless use of a contaminated supplement”, taken by the Romanian under the advice of her personal physiotherapist “who is not a doctor or clinician”. A case of negligence, which was in fact sanctioned albeit lightly, completely different from that of Sinner, who was found positive for a substance contained in a drug by his physiotherapist to treat a cut on his finger, with the tennis player completely unaware.