After his tournament victory in Beijing, the world number two will continue almost without a break in Shanghai. The German number two awaits him there.
Tennis star Jannik Sinner is approaching his match against Daniel Altmaier at the Masters in Shanghai with great respect. The second-round match against the German number two will be a “very, very difficult and tough challenge” for him, the Italian emphasized before the start of the tournament on Saturday: “You never know what will happen.”
After his triumph at the ATP tournament in Beijing on Wednesday, Sinner has little time to prepare for his title defense mission in Shanghai. “I only have one training session to prepare, but we’ll see,” Sinner said. However, he did not want to criticize the tightly packed calendar, which has been the subject of debate in world tennis for years: “The schedule is what it is, but I would say that we as players still have a choice.”
Sinner has only a 1-1 record against Altmaier so far. In 2023, the German defeated Sinner, then a rising top-10 player, in the second round of the French Open after a five-set thriller – a year earlier, Sinner had prevailed at the US Open.
Sinner’s big rival at the top of the world rankings, US Open winner Carlos Alcaraz from Spain, has withdrawn from Shanghai due to physical problems – and blamed the tour calendar for his decision. In his absence, Grand Slam record winner Novak Djokovic is likely to be Sinner’s toughest competitor at the 1000 tournament. Last year, Sinner defeated the Serb in the final.
