Tennis, Sinner beats Popyrin in exhibition: 2025 starts well

Melbourne, January 7, 2025 – Jannik Sinner He started his 2025 and did it with a victory in an exhibition match against Australian Alexei PopyrinThe Italian has started the new year well and is preparing to defend his title at the Australian Open, won a year ago in the final against Daniil MedvedevJannik will have to defend the 2000 points he won in Melbourne, which are very important for his ranking, and to do so he has chosen not to play one of the Australian tournaments in preparation, but to rely on two exhibitions that are part of the AO Opening Week.  

Victory with Popyrin in two sets

The first of the two, held in the early Italian morning, went well and allowed Sinner to put about an hour and forty minutes in his legs, in a match that was tight but not too tough to approach the Australian cement. Victory in two sets for Jannik who got the better of the number 25 in the world rankings Popyrin for 6-4 7-6 (2). A well-played match by Sinner who stepped up when it mattered most, especially in the tiebreak of the second set where he left Popyrin just two points. A match to warm up the engines, to get his tennis in shape in view of the first slam of the season that will be played from 12 to 26 January in Melbourne, where in addition to his opponents, Jannik will have to deal with the Australian heat. Waiting for him, while waiting for the draw, there will also be his great enemy Nick Kyrgios, his most ardent accuser for the well-known doping affair. Kyrgios continues to attack him ferociously on social media, but Jannik, for now, has not taken legal action, deciding not to care about his opponent and not to give weight to his words. The Australian has also teamed up with Nole Djokovic in recent doubles tournaments, another fairly clear strategy to try to insert a grain of sand into the perfect mechanism of the Italian. Sinner he doesn't want distractions and is focused on tennis, as demonstrated in the two sets with which he defeated Popyrin, one of the Australian hopes at home. For Sinner now more training to prepare himself as best as possible under the guidance of Darren Cahill, his coach, in a program that includes a second performance on January 10, this time against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, another outsider of the Australian tournament. It will be played at 9. For now, the first one is good: Sinner has won the first match of 2025. Read also - Sinner, number one against all