After three-month pause, Sinner is back in business

Comebacks for elite athletes after a considerable time off can often carry an air of uncertainty

- Rutvick Mehta

MUMBAI: Ahead of his first sighting in competitive tennis after the Australian Open, Jannik Sinner had entered to play the Hamburg Open, an ATP 500 tournament in the week leading into the French Open. It was a back-up deviation should it take the world No. 1 some time to get started again at the ATP 1000 in Rome. Three days ago, he pulled out of Hamburg.

Sinner has played enough in Rome. And, won enough to get his feel back after returning from a three-month forced hiatus to a doping suspension.

At times, it looked like that feel from a player who hadn't lost a match since September last year never went away. Like when he bagelled world No. 7 Casper Ruud winning a staggering 25 of 32 points in the first set of the quarter-final and wrapped him up 6-0, 6-1. All Ruud could do was smile and sum it up as "kind of next level s**t".