‘Funny timing’: Jannik Sinner's opponent breaks silence on heat rule intervention in Australian Open scare

Australian Open: Jannik Sinner was suffering from cramps and was close to retiring. But the extreme heat rule came to his rescue.

Eliot Spizzirri was close to clinching a massive victory against Jannik Sinner at the Australian Open on Saturday. The Italian was suffering from cramps in his arms and legs, and had also gone down a break in the third set. But then Lady Luck came to his rescue as the extreme heat rule was implemented. The match was halted for eight minutes while the roof at the Rod Laver Arena was closed, enough to revitalise Sinner.

He won five of the next six games to take the set. Then there was another cooling break between the third and fourth sets, giving him more time to stage a comeback. He came back fighting, sealing a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory.

‘Funny timing’

After the match, many fans took to social media and pointed out that the heat rule saved Sinner. Meanwhile, Spizzirri said, "I don't know if he got saved by it. I smiled a little bit when the heat rule went into effect just because it was kind of a funny timing as I went up 3-1."

Sinner has faced similar issues in the past, too. He was forced to retire in the third round of his Shanghai title defence in October last year, and had to get past similar problems weeks later in a three-set win over Alexander Zverev in the Vienna final.

Meanwhile, Sinner said, "I got lucky today. At the point when they closed the roof, it took a little bit of time. I tried to loosen up a little bit. It helped... I also changed the way of playing certain points. That helped me today, for sure."

"You cannot have treatment in that time, so I was stretching. I laid down for five minutes, trying to loosen up the muscles. It worked really well. Trying to get the body temperature a bit down. That's it. There are not many things you can do. Time passed quite fast, but it helped me, for sure," he added.