Jannik Sinner apologised to Jim Courier during his on-court interview (Image: Eurosport)
apologised after “mocking” Jim Courier during his post-match interview at the .
The world No. 1 thrashed last Aussie hope on Rod Laver Arena and joined Courier for a long chat to debrief the match.
But the retired player-turned-presenter jokingly suggested Sinner was making fun of him when he shared the plus side of being young.
Sinner needed less than two hours to send De Minaur packing in the quarter-final, earning a 6-3 6-2 6-1 victory on Wednesday evening.
It was a clinical performance from the Italian who, just two days ago, raised serious health fears when he was seen shaking during his fourth-round match and left the court for 11 minutes to be seen by doctors.
There were fears Sinner may not even take the court for his quarter-final but he quickly proved that he was back to his best, booking his spot in Friday’s semi-final.
After the match, Courier asked the top seed how he was able to make such a swift recovery and Sinner admitted it was partly down to his age. “Yesterday was a very easy day,” he said, walking Courier and the crowd through his day off.
Defending champion Jannik Sinner is through to the Australian Open semi-final (Image: Getty)
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“I played just half an hour, 40 minutes with my coaches there so they gave me a good rhythm, I guess. But no, talking about general, physical, I feel like especially when you are young, you recover very fast, it’s a bit different.”
Sinner and the fans started laughing as he mentioned his age. Courier looked around, jibing: “He’s looking right at me and just mocking me. This guy!”
The 23-year-old held his hands up, though he confessed his dig was also aimed at his coaching camp. ” Yeah, I’m sorry! I was looking also towards my team which is behind you,” he laughed.
“Makes me feel better!” Courier replied while one of Sinner’s coaches, Darren Cahill, wagged his finger.
Sinner turned his attention back to the initial question, continuing: “As I said some days ago, I really like to sleep so trying to rest in the best possible way, not doing so many things. Just trying to relax, recover, trying to be ready for the court.”
Sinner also used his downtime to watch two of his main rivals – and – go head-to-head in the quarter-final on Tuesday night. The local time but the defending champion was happy to tune in.
“I watched until the end because I knew that I could sleep in,” he explained.
“It was an amazing match, these kinds of match-ups are tough to see in quarter-finals. This should be final or semi-final.
“I think we all want these kinds of rivalries. I think Carlos and Novak, this is, at the moment, the best rivalry we have in tennis. It was an amazing matchup, amazing rallies and this is also why we need an amazing crowd.”
After winning his own quarter-final, Sinner will now renew his rivalry with Ben Shelton as they play for a spot in the championship match. Sinner leads their head-to-head 4-1.