Sinner to be walled off from the world during Rome return

Jannik Sinner will make his return to tennis next week after serving a three-month doping ban, returning to a walled off environment at the Rome Masters.

The world No. 1 from Italy will be given a well-guarded personal suite at the Foro Italico venue for his “headquarters,”  meaning he won’t have to mix it up in the locker room.

“We will create a Fort Apache for him because we believe he should be protected and should relax and prepare for his matches using as little energy as possible,” Italian tennis supremo Angelo Binaghi told local media.

Sinner will be playing at the Rome event for the first time since 2023 after missing last year’s edition with a hip injury. In the interim he became a household name and took over the top ranking spot.

Up to 400,000 tickets have been sold for the tournament which kicks off on Wednesday as the mutant ATP scheduling experiment of two-week Masters events trundles on despite player criticism.

Sinner will be unsure of his welcome back to tennis after serving a ban for inadvertent doping through his support team for which he was found not culpable.

The German-speaker from the northern Alto Adige region next to Austria told RAI sport that he felt uncomfortable stares during January’s Australian open – his last event before the ban kicked in.

“I didn’t really feel at ease in the locker room, in the player dining area,” he told the broadcaster. “There were some players that looked at me differently, and I didn’t really like it.

“It’s heavy, to live tennis this way – I was always someone who joked around, who went in the locker room talking with this person, that person, anyone — and at that time I was a different person, I didn’t feel at ease.

At that time I said to myself, maybe some time off after Australia, a break for a little bit, would do me good.”

His ban ends on Sunday and he is due to travel immediately to the capital.