Sam Querrey dismisses Jannik Sinner ‘conspiracy’ at Italian Open and raises lawsuit fears
Sam Querrey has rubbished any “conspiracy” theory talk surrounding Jannik Sinner’s Italian Open win over Daniil Medvedev.
The 24-year-old was seeking a 33rd-straight win at Masters 1000 level in his semi-final clash with the Russian in Rome last Friday, but was pushed to the limit by the former world No 1.
Prior to the contest getting suspended due to rain, Sinner took a medical timeout, when he was a break up in the third and final set, for what appeared to be cramps.
Not long after, both players walked off the court due to the adverse weather conditions, before Sinner came back and won the encounter the following day.
Medvedev appeared to be the more frustrated of the two when play was halted, with some tennis fans taking to social media to claim that Sinner was getting preferential treatment at his home tournament.
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But former world No 11 Querrey is having none of it.
He said on the latest episode of Nothing Major, “Just so everyone knows, that match late in the third set, he started to feel some cramps, the trainer came out, and he was treating the cramps, and then the rain came.
“And then for the people, just the conspiracy people out there, when the rain came and they called the match a lot of times what happens is that if rain is coming at 11 pm they will look at the forecast and if it shows more rain coming at midnight, 1 am or 2 am, they will cancel the match because they don’t want to keep players there for three hours.
“If there is no rain coming, they will be like, ‘Look, we think the rain is going to end in 30 minutes, we are going to keep you here’. I know people are like ‘Of course they saw rain and cancelled it for Sinner,’ but that is not the case here.”
Querrey also weighed in on the debate over whether or not Sinner’s medical timeout against Medvedev was for an injury or cramps.
ATP Tour rules dictate that a player can only receive treatment for cramping during a changeover, rather than taking a medical timeout.
But because it is so difficult to enforce, players may be getting away with it. And Querrey has pointed out a potential flaw if a player is refused treatment for cramping.
He said, “It’s almost like everyone needs to be okay with you getting treatment on cramps on changeovers. You can also fake… If you are cramping, you can say, ‘I have a sharp pain in my quad’ and even though it’s not a sharp pain in your quad and they can start rubbing the area and fix it. I don’t think there’s a good solution for it.
“If the trainer goes out and they say, ‘That’s not cramps, it’s something else’, and then the player goes on and gets hurts and they say, ‘Well the trainer didn’t help me’, and then all of a sudden you’ve got lawsuits on your hands.”