The nature of Jannik Sinner’s first-round win at Wimbledon was far from what many had expected, as the defending champion.
After all, in relatively mild conditions and against a player barely inside the world’s top 50, an easy victory was expected.
However, anybody who really knows Miomir Kecmanovic would have been well aware of the threats he posed, and yet even they would have been shocked by the level he produced to out-rally Sinner and race into a two-set-to-one lead.
Andy Roddick, combing back over this enthralling encounter, has admitted that it was not the Serbian who surprised him, but actually Jannik Sinner.
Andy Roddick reviews Jannik Sinner’s thrilling first-round win at Wimbledon
Speaking on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast, reviewing the first day of action at Wimbledon, his focus naturally fell mostly on that gutsy Sinner win.
However, despite the impressive nature of his comeback, Roddick still admitted he was hugely surprised by the Italian, stating: “51 errors. He was missing a lot, and his misses weren’t by three inches. They were by, like, four or five feet. I was stunned.”
How worried are you about Jannik Sinner’s first round performance?
He continued: “And Kecmanovic, one, the guy’s been… Kecmanovic has been in the fourth round here, three out of four years, and the people he’s lost to: Djokovic, Djokovic, Sinner, and now Sinner. So he can play on grass, short take-backs, can accept pace pretty well, but he was beating Jannik kind of just playing through the middle, which is normally a recipe for disaster.
“Like, I would have never, ever, ever mentioned that as a possibility for him, and it was working, but it was working because there was some relief. Jannik was missing some today, right? He had 14 errors in the first set. Just there. So scratchy.”
However, Roddick also had a counter-argument for any worries after the match: “But let’s think about this also. When you win as much as he does, he was on a 30-match winning streak before Roland Garros, by the way. Like, we forget about that a little too quickly.
“A month plus between matches for him is like an off-season. The only time he goes a month without playing matches because he wins as much as he does is like, finals of Turin into Australia, which is like six or seven weeks, right? So there is going to be some rust.
“He was always going to be a little rusty, and when so much of the narrative about him coming into this tournament is heat, heat, heat, heat, heat… no one talks about his game ever anymore. It’s all heat, heat, heat. There’s never been more interest in the forecast nine days from now in the history of tennis.”
Why was Jannik Sinner’s foot bleeding so much?
Roddick then went on to reference the various ailments that Sinner was battling during this match, including the pooling blood in his shoe, which seemingly had no explanation.
The pundit added: “I mean, it’s true, but if you were gonna have a gutsy win, where you fall, I don’t know how he didn’t break all the hips. I mean, that, oh, my God.
“And then whatever the hell he had going on his nail where he had the bloody foot, the shoe. It kept growing. Like, there was a lot of blood in there, because it was a little spot to begin with. And then it was adding towards this heel.
“But if there was a time for a very gutsy, kind of ugly win for him, the timing of the narrative is pretty good.
“I think this is perfect for him moving forward in this tournament. I think he’s gonna be a different human in the third round.
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“I think if there’s ever a time for your foot to be bleeding through your shoe, to be falling down, to get through it on not a perfect day. And I have to give him credit.”
Speaking afterwards, Sinner has since revealed the nature of his foot injury, claiming it was his toenail which was causing such discomfort.
He admitted: “I think it’s a bit worse; my toenail might be gone, but I didn’t want to bother my opponent by taking a break for my foot.”
