Jannik Sinner officially withdraws from US Open Mixed Doubles after sudden Cincinnati Open final retirement

Italy’s Jannik Sinner had a disappointing outing in the final of the Cincinnati Open on Monday. The 24-year-old was forced to retire in the grand finale of the ATP 1000 event in Cincinnati after just 24 minutes against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. He is now out of the US Open Mixed Doubles.

Talking after the match, Sinner apologised to the fans, especially to those who were sitting in the arena and revealed that he had not been feeling well since Sunday and that things only became worse for him during the match, where he looked far from his best. “I’m super, super sorry to disappoint you,” said Sinner to the fans. “From yesterday I didn’t feel great. I thought that I would improve during the night, but it came up worse. I tried to come out, tried to make it at least a small match, but I couldn’t handle more, so I’m very sorry.”

The result had cast doubts about Sinner’s participation in the upcoming US Open mixed doubles event as well. he fourth and final Grand Slam of the year, for the first time, will be played in two different parts. The first part will consist of a mixed doubles event, which will be played as a standalone competition with a prize money worth of $1 million up for grabs. The competition will feature 16 teams, out of which eight will qualify directly based on the players' singles rankings, whereas the other eight will qualify via the wildcard entry.

One of the teams that received a direct entry into the mega-event consisted of Sinner, who was set to partner with Katerina Siniakova. The two were set to face the pair of Germany’s Alexander Zverev and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic in the round of 16 on Tuesday. While Sinner did not mention anything about his participation in the new format of the mega-event, he did hint that he is unlikely to take part in the mixed doubles event as he specifically talked about defending his US Open title in the singles category. That has now been confirmed on Tuesday. The team of Siniakova/Sinner is replaced by Danielle Collins/Christian Harrison.

“Yes, of course, disappointed,” he said while talking to the media after the match. “ Didn’t feel great from yesterday. Also during the night, I thought I would recover a bit better, but it was not the case. And I just tried to go out for the fans, trying to give a match. That’s the reason why I went on the court, but it was not meant to be for me today. So, you know, it happens. And, but another way, I don’t want to take anything away from Carlos. He had a great week, great, great tournament again. And, and now the main focus, obviously, is for, for, for US Open. And yeah, now recovery is the most important. And then we see.”

Sinner then went on to talk about his future objectives in detail and stated that he believes his preparations for the upcoming US Open has gone well in Cincinnati where he finished as the runner-up. “Yeah, I feel like a very positive week,” said Sinner. “I mean, making finals of a Masters event, it’s always an amazing achievement. I feel like it’s an incredible season for me. So we’ll keep going, keep pushing as I say. Now I already have some points where I need to improve if I want to go far in US Open. And it was a good test this week, trying to understand where my level is. My level is, is in a good spot, for sure.”

Sinner also stated his excitement about playing in the fourth and the final Grand Slam of the year. “Yeah, I love Grand Slams a lot,” said Sinner. “These are the main tournaments for my season and, you know, for my career. So US Open is going to be tough tournament, but in the same time, I’m looking forward to it. If I’m ready, physically and mentally, I’m, I will be ready to push. So as I said, now a couple of days of recovery, and then, you know, we get again back to work, and hopefully we’ll be ready. So for sure, the main goal here in the US.”