Pegula and Keys are not surprised by Sinner's withdrawal: "His way of moving is not normal"

The decision of Jannik Sinner not to play for the remainder of 2026 due to his knee injury surprised the tennis world. What seemed to be mere discomfort turned into something more serious when he withdrew from the US Open, and when it seemed that everything had passed, the pain returned, forcing him to make the most drastic decision: no more tennis until 2027.

Sinner's last official match was on July 13 when he crowned himself champion of Wimbledon for the second time, but he arrived at the London Grand Slam with a battered body. From his victory in Indian Wells to his KO in the second round of Roland Garros, the Italian didn’t lose a match and secured five Masters 1000 titles along the way, but his body could no longer withstand the strain after the grass season.

Pegula and Keys point to Sinner's movement style as the main cause of his injury

Still, no one expected him to make such a drastic decision; however, for Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys, ranked number 4 and number 21 in the WTA, respectively, this decision did not come as a surprise. Both admitted this in the Player's Box podcast. “I feel that his way of moving is not normal. So it doesn’t surprise me that he might have some issues. I guess Djokovic is probably the closest, but Sinner seems to be skiing on a tennis court,” Pegula noted.

For Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion, Sinner “moves in a way that my body could never do it because I would break. I mean, it’s not entirely surprising. The way he can run to the corners or slide into them, stop, and change direction. I keep running towards the stands, and Jannik, somehow, is completely stopped and already running towards the next ball.”

Silky skills for the pass 💫 @janniksin #NittoATPFinals https://t.co/0Cm5j7aygw

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) November 12, 2025

Pegula wished Sinner the best, although she admitted that the Italian sometimes seems unbeatable. However, in the tennis world, no one is free from the drama of injuries: “I hope he gets better. For a couple of years, I thought he was unstoppable. And sometimes I think we always believe that no one can beat him.”

Furthermore, Pegula believes that a lesson can be learned from all this: “And then something like this happens, and you come back to the reality that it is really difficult to stay healthy, especially at his level, and now we see Zverev taking the number one spot at the end of the year, something we probably thought wouldn’t happen until we saw the two injuries of Alcaraz and Sinner. So it’s crazy.”

We will have to see if going into 2027 Jannik Sinner makes any changes to his physical condition, or if he decides to restructure his schedule in a more optimal way to prevent his season from lasting only seven months, no matter how successful it has been.
 

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, A Pegula y Keys no les sorprende la baja de Sinner: "Su forma de moverse no es normal"