“I noticed he was starting to struggle”: Tallon Griekspoor reflects after Sinner retires in Shanghai heat

Under the suffocating humidity of a late-night Shanghai evening, Tallon Griekspoor battled through brutal conditions and an elite opponent before Jannik Sinner’s retirement brought an unexpected close to their gripping contest. The Dutchman led 6-7(3), 7-5, 3-2 when the world No. 2 was forced to stop, marking a bittersweet victory for Griekspoor and a shocking early exit for the Italian favourite.

“Yeah, not the way you want to win,” Griekspoor admitted moments after midnight to Ziggo Sport, drenched in sweat but smiling with quiet pride. “Especially after what I think were two very good sets from both of us.” It was a fight defined by intensity rather than dominance — both players trading service holds and testing each other’s limits under oppressive humidity that made even the simplest rallies a test of endurance.

In the opening set, Sinner looked razor-sharp, firing aces and crushing returns with the precision of a top-two player. “He played an unbelievable tiebreak — hit a few aces, connected on a couple of returns, caught the line twice. There wasn’t much I could do there,” Griekspoor said. But the Dutchman refused to fade. As Sinner’s level dipped ever so slightly in the second, Griekspoor stayed patient, waiting for his opportunity to strike.

“I managed to hang in well,” he recalled. “Maybe I had a bit of luck at 4-3, 0-40, but I served my way out of it and finally managed to break. I did notice he was starting to struggle a bit physically.” By the end of the second set, the warning signs were clear — Sinner was grimacing between points, looking increasingly laboured in the humid night air. When he walked to the net down 2-3 in the third, the crowd fell silent as the umpire announced his retirement.

“It’s not like I was feeling fresh myself,” Griekspoor said with a laugh. “It was incredibly brutal out there — extremely humid, tough to hold the racket. Not the way you want to win, but I’m very pleased with how I played for two and a half sets.” His consistency and composure in those crucial moments reflected a player learning to manage not just opponents, but himself.

The 28-year-old Dutchman, ranked outside the game’s elite, has often struggled to maintain momentum after strong starts. This time, he made a conscious effort to stay mentally sharp. “I’ve had matches before where I played a great first set, lost it in a tiebreak, and then the second set just slipped away quickly,” he said. “Today, I tried to hang in there, wait for my chances — and out of nowhere, I broke him at 5-5.”

Sinner’s retirement may overshadow Griekspoor’s part in the contest, but the numbers tell their own story. For two and a half sets, the Dutchman matched one of the world’s most complete players shot for shot. “I showed once again that I can compete with the best in the world,” he reflected. “He’s in great form, was fit for two sets, and I went toe-to-toe with him the whole way.”

The victory sends Griekspoor into the third round, where he will face Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot — a far less daunting opponent on paper but one capable of upsets in his own right. “It shows that when I have rest, the right people around me, and I’m calm both mentally and physically, I can perform at this level,” Griekspoor said. “It gives me a lot of confidence.”

He also sees this moment as proof that persistence pays off. “If you keep working, keep doing the right things, and keep pushing, your moment will come,” he said. “I’ve had to wait a long time to beat Sinner — had a few tough losses where I came very close — so yeah, this one feels really good.”

As the lights dimmed in Shanghai, Griekspoor’s modest satisfaction contrasted sharply with the disappointment surrounding Sinner’s exit. Yet the night belonged to the Dutchman — not for the way it ended, but for the fight he showed before it did.