“Already this morning I didn’t feel great. I had some problems,” Jannik Sinner said after his loss to Daniil Medvedev. During the match, the former received a medical timeout in the third set. The doctor checked his pulse, and he soon returned to the court, only to face defeat in five sets. But Coco Gauff’s coach, Brad Gilbert, had some thoughts about the medical timeout. What did he say?

Taking to X, Gilbert questioned the ulterior motives behind such medical timeouts. “Still think 🤔 being able to leave the court for injury timeout and or evaluation that tons of player do, and totally legal now for a long time , is a bad rule unless is for something requiring a table they should look 👀 to rechange this rule at some point also the evaluation time is way to long, way longer then MTO.”

Here’s the thing to consider. If a player encounters a health concern/injury, that can be addressed quickly, a player can opt for a medical time-out and then get back to continue the match. However, there have been instances where this provision has been misused to disrupt an opponent’s rhythm.

Generally, a player is allowed three minutes. But if they have to have to leave the court for treatment, the umpire may allow additional time needed. And this is what seems to have happened in Sinner’s case. On the grass courts of Wimbledon, Jannik Sinner was seen struggling with his health. While the Italian appeared a little off bit in the second set, his situation worsened when he was trailing 1-2 in the third set.

He was visibly struggling with his mobility before he headed to the sidelines and called for his physio David Pires as he reportedly complained of an injury. The player and his physio were soon joined by an SW19 doctor who seemed to check his heart rate. He was ultimately taken off the court and did not make a return for over 11 minutes. 

When Sinner did return, he could not keep up his gameplay. Despite the Italian battling to force the fifth set, the World No. 5 Medvedev showed his class to win the decider 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3 and march to the semifinals. This delay seemingly made Gilbert question the timeout rules. However, it is not the first time when the 62-year-old has made such a claim.

During the Australian Open this year, Gilbert had voiced similar concerns. He highlighted that the evaluation process sometimes exceeds the actual injury timeout, comparing it to the time when all of it used to wind up in just three minutes. Coco Gauff’s coach shared on X, “The injury TO evaluation takes way too long, sometimes even longer than the actual injury TO. It used to be back in the day, no evaluation, just 3 mins – they should go back to that rule.”

Gilbert isn’t the only one with these concerns. In January, former Australian tennis player John Alexander voiced similar sentiments after he watched Novak Djokovic request treatment for his wrist while competing against Jiri Lehecka. Djokovic won 6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-1 and qualified for the United Cup’s quarterfinals.

But coming back to Sinner, when will his medical woes stop?

When Jannik Sinner was forced to withdraw from another major tournament due to injury

Jannik Sinner’s tryst with injury is not new. The Italian sensation has faced similar woes this season in another prestigious tournament that he played, the Madrid Open. The Australian Open Winner had to call off his campaign there as well due to a hip injury. He had already reached the quarterfinals and was the top seed.

“Very sad to have to withdraw from my next match here in Madrid. My hip has been bothering me this week and has slowly been getting more painful. Taking the advice from the doctors we decided it’s best to not play further and make it worse. I’ll be doing some more tests in the coming days and follow the advice from the specialists on recovery,” he wrote on May 1.

Now, his Wimbledon loss to Medvedev also seems to have been because of his injury. After all, the Italian has beaten him five times in a row.

But Medvedev is happy to end his losing streak against Sinner. Finally. It was a sweet redemption for the Russian. “I knew if I was going to beat Jannik. It was going to be a tough match,” he stated later. But let us not forget that Medvedev’s five back-to-back losses against Sinner came after the former won in their first six meetings. Clearly, there is a lot of history between them.

As injuries have continued to take center stage in Jannik Sinner’s career, it will be interesting to see if the World No. 1 can do something exceptional as the season progresses. What do you think?