What's all this racket? Tennis fans call out Head after Jannik Sinner opts against using new racket at Australian Open

Jannik Sinner was unable to defend his Australian Open title after losing in a five-set thriller to Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. Not staying with the times, he completed this with an older racket despite his racket sponsor, Head, unveiling a new spec back in December. They took to social media to defend themselves after tennis fans called them out for this bizarre incident.

The Italian was the face of a new racket release from Head. It was described as, "The racket of choice for the great Jannik Sinner. Power up your swing and play your best with our fastest racket yet."

It would be provided for the world number two ahead of his mission to hunt down a fifth Grand Slam title, and a third in Melbourne. However, the new racket was not to the liking and was quickly put aside.

In a practice session with Taylor Fritz, he was overheard saying, "The racket sucks." He rapidly disposed it and opted for his old racket, more trusted and reliable than then new one. He used it for a warm-up session with Felix Auger-Aliassime, already seeing the difference which confirmed his decision to stick with it. Overall, it is not a great look for Head, with their leading ambassador tossing away the racket they have put a lot of work in to perfect.

On social media, the news was quickly spotted by many tennis fans who were stating their opinions on the situation, unimpressed with Head. Nevertheless, the brand were not going to step down and leave this not explained as they fought back, defending themselves.

One comment read: "So why is Sinner still using a 2022 racket? It's also noticeable that he prefers shared grommets. Why exactly aren't clones of the racket Sinner uses being sold? (I'm not talking about weight or swing weight, of course.)"

Head responded: "Jannik has already played with the new racket in training and in exhibition matches, but has not yet had the opportunity to use it in a tournament match. As the defending champion at the Australian Open, he deliberately sticked to his tried-and-tested match routine for maximum consistency. Let's see what the future holds."

There were also queries about the shared grommets and why they do not use them in rackets anymore. Head cleared this up. "Grommet technologies have a huge impact on the sound and feel of tennis rackets. We constantly revise material formulations and grommet constructions to make our rackets either more crisp or more plush but always feeling more stable. We didn't have the same engineering flexibilities with shared grommets as we have now with our new designs. All our new grommet constructions create such a nice feel that it's definitely worth updating."

It is yet to be seen whether Sinner averts back to the newer racket or if he sticks with his old guns into the future and use the trial and tested older racket design which won him all those titles. The next time Sinner will step onto the court will be in the Qatar Open, as he looks to gain some ranking points on the world number one Carlos Alcaraz.