Jannik Sinner’s coach, Darren Cahill, believes that Grigor Dimitrov had a great chance of beating the world number 1 if it weren’t for the injury he suffered when the set was 2-0 in his favor.
Grigor Dimitrov suffered a chest muscle injury and was forced to withdraw, and Jannik Sinner subsequently won the tournament after defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final.
“Actually, the match with Grigor was a big challenge for us because he definitely had a chance. He literally played brilliantly in that match. In the three-out-of-five format, you never know what can happen. On the bench, we continued to believe that Jannik would get out of this hole and we felt that he was starting to play the way we wanted. But on grass, anything can happen. If Grigor had continued to play at the same level, he would have had a really good chance of winning the match”, said Darren Cahill. “There are seven matches in the Grand Slam tournaments in men’s tennis, each of which is played to five sets. Nobody goes through a tournament without problems, whether it’s an injury, a bit of luck or overcoming a problem at the beginning. Everyone has their own story in the Grand Slam. Maybe this should have been their story. So you have to accept it as it is. You put it behind you and focus on the next opponent. If you beat the next opponent, you go on and make the most of your chance. That’s what he does. He treated his defeat at Roland Garros the same way. He realized he had played an incredible match at Roland Garros. In the end, he was beaten by a better player. He had never played better on clay than he did there. So he knew he was getting better as a tennis player and he was able to put the defeat behind him and focus on the next day. That’s a rare quality. A lot of work on Yannick’s part”, added Darren Cahill.
