Jannik Sinner reveals he has pollen allergy, but refuses to blame it for his Madrid loss

Teen prodigy Jannik Sinner suffered a surprising 6-7, 2-6 loss at the hands of Alexei Popyrin in the Madrid Open second round on Wednesday. And after the match Sinner revealed he has been suffering from a pollen energy for some time now, although he stopped short of using that as an excuse for his early exit.

Sinner struggled with his game almost throughout the match, dumping several easy putaways into the net. That, combined with some inspired big hitting from Popyrin, was enough to ring the death knell for the young Italian.

Speaking to the media after his loss, Jannik Sinner disclosed that the pollen grains in Madrid had set off some allergic reactions in his body which made him feel 'bad on the court'.

"I felt bad on court. I am allergic to pollen," Jannik Sinner said.

The 19-year-old went on to admit, however, that that wasn't the main reason behind his loss. Sinner served for the first set at 5-4 and then led 4-1 in the tiebreaker, but choked away the lead both times out of nervousness.

The Italian claimed that it was "difficult to accept" the loss, but vowed to take his lessons from it.

"But I did not lose because of it," Sinner said. "It's difficult to accept this loss, when you lose a game this way, it's a situation that is not easy to accept. I could have won the first set almost three times. I had chances and I didn't take them. In the second set, I tried to get him moving a bit more. But I will learn from it."

Sinner : "Perdre un match de cette façon est difficile à accepter" We Love Tennis - https://t.co/vIHSYpXHHw pic.twitter.com/QQv0tTFpon

— We Love Tennis (@Welovetennis) May 5, 2021

"Overall, I did not serve well" - Jannik Sinner

Jannik Sinner also pointed out during the interaction that he did not serve well during the encounter, which was evident from the poor numbers he put up. The Italian won just 54% of his service points, which gave Alexei Popyrin enough of an advantage to sail through.

Sinner promised to work harder in training ahead of the Italian Open, the tournament where he had made a breakthrough last year by defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas.

"Overall, I did not serve well," Sinner said. "I felt very bad on the court. He played better than me. It was one of those games where defeat is very hard to take, but I'm sure it will make me grow. I'm going to work hard to be ready in Rome."