Kamal Ghorui
The courtside temperature climbed to 40 degrees. The heat was tangible, almost opaque, rising like a wall at Melbourne Park. Sinner, whose struggles in heat and humidity are well documented, wobbled. The Australian Open’s two-time champion was cramping, first in his legs, then in his hands. World No. 85 Eliot Spizzirri, who had earlier persuaded chair umpire Fergus Murphy to rescind a time violation issued to the two-time defending champion in the second set by arguing he was not ready to receive serve, broke in the third set to take a 3-1 lead. The Italian was in all sorts of trouble. The 24-year-old admitted as much to his coaching crew at courtside. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. Darren Cahill, the Aussie, who Sinner described as the ‘dad’ of the team, was on his feet. “Come on, dig deep, mate,” Cahill urged. “You just have to get through the end of the set, even if you walk around.” That’s when the AO Heat Stress Scale hit a 5, leading to a suspension of play and signalling officials to close the roof. After a seven-minute break, play resumed. The Italian, who took his time settling into the pace of things, bounced back and clawed his way to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win in three hours and 45 minutes to move into the fourth round, where he will take on compatriot Luciano Darderi. “I got lucky today,” Sinner admitted. The second seed, who left the court as the roof closed over Rod Laver Arena, tried to get his thoughts together. “You cannot have treatment at that time. I was stretching. I laid down for five minutes, trying to loosen up the muscles,” he said. “It worked really well, trying to get the body temperature a bit more down. There are not many things you can do. Time passed quite fast, but it helped me, for sure.” Sinner has spent his last two off-seasons in Dubai, preparing to play in warm conditions in Australia, where the tennis year kicks off in peak summer. “This year was not as warm as it was last year,” Sinner said of the conditions he trained in. “I feel like sometimes there are no real explanations. For example, last night I didn’t sleep the way I wanted to. The quality of sleep was not perfect. Maybe it was this that caused the cramps, maybe not. Regardless, I try to be in the best possible shape every day. Recovery, everything going in the right direction. It can happen.” Spizzirri, who played well above his ranking for much of the four-set clash, winning as many points as the second seed in the match, smiled when the heat rule came into play. “It was just funny that right when I broke, it happened. But at the same time, that’s the rules of the game,” the American said. “But yeah, if I had won that third set, we were going to have a ten-minute break anyway because of how hot it was, even if the roof didn’t close. So who knows? I wouldn’t say he got saved by it. He’s too good of a player to say that. At the same time, it was challenging timing, and that’s just the nature of the sport.” Wawrinka bows out: Three-time major winner Stan Wawrinka bid adieu to Melbourne Park, eliminated by American ninth seed Taylor Fritz on Saturday. Having already become the first 40-year-old man to reach the third round of an Australian Open since 1978, Wawrinka did all he could to extend his fairy-tale run. After taking the second set, the Swiss was overpowered by Fritz 7-6 (5), 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in two hours and 46 minutes. Having already announced he will retire at the end of the season, the 2014 Australian Open champion had the John Cain Arena crowd behind him, but the 45 winners he muscled on the day were not enough for a match win. The crowd he had long won.
