PARIS :Italian Jannik Sinner has withdrawn from the Paris Masters after his second-round match finished in the early hours of Thursday morning, with the fourth seed saying he had to make the right decision for health reasons.
Sinner’s clash with Mackenzie McDonald did not start until after midnight and his 6-7(6) 7-5 6-1 win ended at 2:37 a.m., with his third-round match against Alex de Minaur scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
“I am sorry to announce that I am withdrawing from today’s match in Bercy,” Sinner said on social media platform X.
“I finished the match when it was almost three in the morning and didn’t go to bed until a few hours later. I had less than 12 hours rest to prepare for the next game.”
Sinner has qualified for the ATP Finals in Turin which begin on Nov. 12. Australian De Minaur will now face Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals.
“I have to make the right decision for my health and my body,” Sinner added. “The weeks ahead with the ATP Finals at home and the Davis Cup will be very important, now I focus on preparing for these important events. See you in Turin.”
After the late-night win over McDonald, Sinner had hinted at his withdrawal, saying he would decide when he woke up.
Before Sinner’s withdrawal was announced Norwegian Casper Ruud defended the Italian.
“Bravo ATP, way to help one of the best players in the world recover and be as ready as possible when he finished his previous match at 2:37 am this morning, 14.5 hours to recover… what a joke,” Ruud wrote on X.
Late nights are commonplace at other tournaments, including the U.S. and Australian Opens, with Andy Murray describing his 4:05 a.m. finish in a match against Thanasi Kokkinakis in Australia this year as a “farce”.
“The @atptour has never cared about the players. In 2018 I finished a 3h battle at 12:45am & was scheduled to play at 1pm next day. Not joking,” Canadian Vasek Pospisil wrote on X.
Pospisil co-founded the Professional Tennis Players Association with world number one Novak Djokovic.
“All they could say was ‘this is within the rules’,” he added. “The next day I herniated my disc after 4 games, had surgery and was out for 9 months.”
The U.S. Open has no plans to change its schedule.
“We looked at starting the evening session earlier, instead of 7 p.m. start at 6 p.m., but it’s not really a possibility because it’s hard for New Yorkers to get here even at 7 p.m.,” tournament director Stacey Allaster said.