Tennis Legend Mats Wilander Suggests Strategy to Defeat Jannik Sinner Tennis’ clay-court hierarchy just got its latest disruptor: instead of another rising star, it’s a retired legend drawing up a battle plan to derail world No. 1 contender Jannik Sinner in Paris.

The Strategy Drops

In the run-up to Roland Garros, Swedish great Mats Wilander outlined what he calls the only realistic way to trouble Sinner over two weeks in Paris. According to Wilander, rivals must abandon highlight-reel hitting and instead suffocate Sinner with discipline and volume.

He argues for a kind of collective campaign: opponents should “make Sinner’s job more difficult in Paris” by refusing to go for constant winners and by denying him the sharp angles that fuel his aggressive game. The recipe: keep the ball down the middle, blunt his geometry, and stretch him into “four or five sets over consecutive rounds” to test his body and patience.

Pro-government Spin: A Plot Against the Favorite

Serbian pro-government sports media seized on Wilander’s comments with a dramatic headline: “No One Expected This: Legend Does Everything to Beat Jannik Sinner.” Framed this way, the Swede isn’t just offering tactical nuance; he’s practically leading a campaign to “stop” the Italian in Paris.

Across mirrored coverage, Wilander’s call for a “collective effort to pressure Sinner” is treated almost like a locker-room manifesto for the rest of the field, a way to level the playing field against one of the tour’s most explosive shot-makers.

Between Respect and Targeting

Strip away the tabloid drama and what remains is classic Wilander: a respect-soaked warning that Sinner is so good, it may take the entire draw playing ugly, central, grinding tennis to slow him down. Whether that collective actually materializes—or merely fires up Sinner even more—will be one of Roland Garros’ early storylines.