Former British tennis player turned analyst Mark Petchey has expressed his surprise at the glowing compliments ATP players giving to the new World No. 1 Jannik Sinner. Petchey wondered why Sinner’s rivals would be so generous with their words when the Italian was still on the rise on the tour and posing a threat to their ambitions.
Sinner has been the World No. 1 since June 6, 2024, when he overtook Novak Djokovic after the Serb was forced to withdraw from the French Open as he suffered a knee injury in his Round of 16 victory against Francisco Cerundolo.
The Italian has secured 13 singles titles on the ATP Tour to date, including a Grand Slam victory at the 2024 Australian Open, where he defeated third seed Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in the final. He has also led Italy to the Davis Cup title in 2023 and reached the final of the ATP Finals in the same year.
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Sinner’s meteoric rise has earned him the admiration and respect of his peers. In a video shared on social media, some of the top players in the world, such as Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Christopher Eubanks, Medvedev, and Alexander Zverev, expressed their positive opinions on Sinner and his popularity in the locker room.
They all spoke highly of him, describing him as "one of the nicest on tour", "a great representative of tennis", "an easy guy to root for", "deservedly number one", and "very down to earth".
Watch the video here:
However, not everyone was convinced by the glowing testimonials. Mark Petchey, who played on the ATP Tour from 1988 to 1998 and reached a career-high ranking of No. 80, took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his thoughts on the video.
The 53-year-old said that he found it very odd that Jannik Sinner’s rivals were showering him with compliments while he was still on the rise, and suggested that they should save their praise for when his career was over.
"Isn’t this the sort of things rivals should do when the war is over, not when the battles are still raging?" Petchy wrote.
Mark Petchey backed Jannik Sinner after critic slammed him as uninteresting
Mark Petchey stood up for Jannik Sinner against accusations of being uninteresting while praising the Italian's impressive performance at the 2024 Miami Open, where he dominated Grigor Dimitrov with a 6-3, 6-1 victory in the final.
Responding to a critic on X (formerly Twitter), who called Sinner uninteresting, Petchey compared the Italian's skill level to Roger Federer at his peak, recalling how he had admired the Swiss for five years.
"Sinner… fabulous player, lovely guy… doesn’t interest me at all," a user wrote on X.
"We spend 5 years eulogising (rightly so) over Roger handing out smoke shows like Jannik did this week. I for one am absolutely mesmerised by how good he is and how he plays. Only going to get better and a more all court player," Petchy replied.
Jannik Sinner is currently competing at the Terra Wortman Open in Halle as a top seed. The Italian kicked off his grass-court season by defeating Tallon Griekspoor 6-7(8), 6-3, 6-2 in two hours and 22 minutes to reach the Round of 16 where he will face Fabian Marozsan on June 20.
The Australian Open champion partnered with Hubert Hurkacz for the doubles, where they will face third-seeded pair of Jackson Withrow and Nathaniel Lammons on June 19.
