Andy Murray assesses Jannik Sinner’s Wimbledon chances and explains unique quality needed to play well on grass
Andy Murray believes there is no reason why Jannik Sinner can’t do well at Wimbledon as he backed the Italian “to win more” Grand Slams.
Sinner opened his major account at this year’s Australian Open as he defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic in the semi-final and followed it up with a stunning five-set comeback win over Daniil Medvedev in the final.
The Italian’s maiden Grand Slam title had been two years in the making as he reached three quarter-finals in 2022 and then made it to the last four at Wimbledon last year.
On the back of his semi-final run at the All England Club last year, two-time Wimbledon winner Murray was asked for his opinion about Sinner’s chances at SW19 this year.
“I mean, I think with the way he hits the ball, I think on all of the surfaces he will, you know, have good results,” the former world No 1 said as he gave more detail about the importance of movement on grass.
“I would say the hard courts just now are probably his best surface. I think he moves extremely well on the hard courts. Moving on the grass courts is, you know, it’s a little bit different, but, I mean, in terms of the way, like, he serves and hits the ball, yeah, there is no reason why he can’t do very well on the grass.
“Just sometimes some players take more time to adjust to the movement on that surface because it is so unique. For whatever reason, that was a surface that I moved best or most naturally on, but I think he has the chance to, you know, do very well.”
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Sinner has won 12 ATP Tour singles titles and 11 have come on hard courts with his 2022 Croatia Open his only trophy on clay. He is also yet to reach a final on grass, although he has only played 20 matches on the surfaces so far in his career.
Murray continued: “I watched quite a lot of the final in Australia. Yeah, he did unbelievably well to come back and win that match from the position that he was in. It was obviously a great effort.
“Medvedev potentially at the very end was a little bit fatigued. He’d played a lot of tennis that week, those two weeks. But yeah, Jannik was, yeah, going for his shots, very consistent mentally, and yeah, did a great job to get through. After winning the first one, I’m sure he’ll go on to win more.”