MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — He knew the extreme heat rule would come into play whether or not he broke Jannik Sinner's serve Saturday in the third game of the third set.
Eliot Spizzirri went ahead and broke the two-time defending champion 's serve anyway, taking confidence and momentum into an eight-minute break while the roof closed over the Australian Open's main stadium.
Click to Gallery
Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. plays a backhand return to Jannik Sinner of Italy during their third round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Jannik Sinner of Italy reacts during his third round match against Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Jannik Sinner of Italy receives treatment from a trainer during his third round match against Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Jannik Sinner, right, of Italy is congratulated by Eliot Spizzirri, left, of the U.S. following their third round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. waves as he leaves the court following his third round loss to Jannik Sinner of Italy at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
After the interruption, momentum swung completely. Sinner, staggering with cramps and completely distracted before the interval, regained his composure while the roof was closing and again in a 10-minute “cooling break” before the fourth set.
Sinner won it 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 and advanced to the round of 16, later admitting he might have got lucky with the timing of the heat rule. The timing of the roof closure generated plenty of backlash on social media.
But Spizzirri took a very matter-of-fact approach to his defeat.
“Yeah, I don’t know if he got saved by it,” the 24-year-old American said. "I smiled a little bit when the heat rule went into effect, just because it was kind of funny timing as I went up 3-1. But at the same time, you know, the game at 2-1 in the third set was when the heat (scale) hit 5.0.
“So whenever that game was over, whether I broke or whether he held, we were going to close the roof. It was just funny that right when I broke and he was wobbling, that it happened to happen that way.”
“That’s the rules of the game,” he said. “And, you know, you got to live with it.”
Sinner made a recovery under similar circumstances against Holger Rune at a previous Australian Open, and Spizzirri said obviously the world's No. 2-ranked player had worked out ways to combat his cramps.
Spizzirri played college tennis in Texas, and said conditions he'd experienced in Austin and in other places like Florida were worse than Saturday's dry, hot day in Melbourne.
On the men's tour, he'd said he'd played in China last year where the court temperature reached 123 degrees Fahrenheit (51 Celsius).
“I don’t think it was even ballpark close to that today,” said Spizzirri, who made his main draw debut at Melbourne Park this year. “So, yeah, I felt pretty fresh, to be honest, and felt like I could have gone a lot longer.”
The temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) when the tournament’s heat scale hit a maximum of 5. The maximum Saturday didn’t quite hit the forecast of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
While he said he was conditioned to play in extreme heat, Spizzirri accepted that the tournaments had to apply rules for player protection.
“I’ve played in way worse conditions. I’ve trained in way worse conditions. In college we played in brutal conditions at times in Austin,” he said. "Maybe that’s just a good thing to have under my belt.
“But at the same time, this rule is protection for us. I think it will hopefully promote guys to stay healthier for a longer period of time throughout the season, because playing these matches in this heat for an extended period of time over and over, day after day, is really tough on the body.”
Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. plays a backhand return to Jannik Sinner of Italy during their third round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Jannik Sinner of Italy reacts during his third round match against Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Jannik Sinner of Italy receives treatment from a trainer during his third round match against Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Jannik Sinner, right, of Italy is congratulated by Eliot Spizzirri, left, of the U.S. following their third round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S. waves as he leaves the court following his third round loss to Jannik Sinner of Italy at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s secretive new leader issued his first public statements Thursday, resolving to keep fighting, promising more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatening to open “other fronts” in a war that has already disrupted world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel.
Early Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.” Trump tallied the damage inflicted on Iran and its leaders and called it a “great honor” to be responsible for it.
The remarks by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian population to topple the government.
“It is in your hands,” Netanyahu said at a news conference, addressing the Iranian people. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.”
Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government’s ability to suppress dissent, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the U.S-based independent monitoring group known as ACLED.
Intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as outlying areas. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted.
Netanyahu denounced Khamenei as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards."
Khamenei is close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is widely seen as even less compromising than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei said in a statement read by a state TV news anchor that he was keeping a “file of revenge.” He did not appear on camera and has not been seen since his father and wife were killed in the war’s opening salvo, which also wounded him, according to an Iranian ambassador.
The war continued to escalate on its 13th day as oil prices spiraled up again to $100 per barrel, and stocks sank worldwide over fears that the conflict could drag on longer than hoped.
To relieve the surge in prices, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was further easing sanctions on Russian oil by granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some Russian crude oil and petroleum products for the next month.
Trump signaled earlier this week that he would take more action to address the squeeze on oil flows. The move follows the administration’s decision to grant temporary permission for India to buy Russian oil.
The new exemption applies only to Russian oil already at sea. Last week, analysts estimated there were about 125 million barrels loaded on tankers. To put that in perspective, about 20 million barrels of oil per day usually pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the International Energy Agency.
Iran has made clear it plans to keep up attacks on energy infrastructure across the region and use the effective closure of the strait as leverage against the United States and Israel. A fifth of the world’s traded oil flows through the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean.
At a news conference Thursday, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, said Iranian naval forces “have established full control” over the strait and “carried out precise strikes in response to attacks on our oil infrastructure.”
“Global energy security is contingent on respect for Iran’s sovereignty,” he said.
The pinch was being felt worldwide. South Korea reinstated government-set caps on oil prices for the first time in three decades as it sought to calm soaring fuel costs. The two-week caps, which took effect Friday, set maximum prices for petroleum products supplied by refiners to gas stations and other businesses.
Hosseinian told The Associated Press the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home, but “it is not serious.” The hope is he will attend the massive, state-organized Eid prayer next week that his father traditionally led. However, Khamenei remains a target for the Israelis, who have vowed to kill him.
Hosseinian said Iran’s strikes on Gulf nations have been strategic. “Even when we targeted hotels, we had precise information that they were hosting American and Israeli soldiers,” he said.
Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region, saying protection promised by Washington was “nothing more than a lie.”
He also said Iran has studied “opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable” if the war continues. He did not elaborate, but Iran has been linked to previous attacks on U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
Attacks on Gulf states continued Friday with Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry saying its air defenses downed more than three dozen drones headed toward the kingdom’s Eastern Province over the span of a few hours, marking an unusually large barrage.
Trump said in a social media post Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon was a higher priority than soaring oil prices.
Hours later, Netanyahu announced Israeli attacks had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and hit others but gave few details.
Israel said earlier it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days that it had destroyed with an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year, satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility.
The U.S. military said American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. France earlier said six soldiers had been hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops are deployed as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.
In the same region, British officials said several U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.
And on Thursday in western Iraq, rescue efforts were underway after an American military refueling plane went down. U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely, and that the cause was not related to friendly or hostile fire.
Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanon, targeting even the busy heart of Beirut, in response to missiles from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters launched into Israel. One strike hit in a neighborhood that is close to Lebanon’s parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.
Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said forces were targeting a “facility affiliated with Hezbollah.”
An Israeli strike hit in the vicinity of Lebanon’s only public university, killing a professor and the director of the science faculty at the campus in Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Israeli strikes also killed 15 other people, including five children, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. An AP photographer saw several buildings flattened in one village where rescue workers searched through the rubble.
Ben Mbarek reported from Tunis, Tunisia. El Deeb reported from Beirut. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers from around the world contributed to this report.
Israeli authorities inspect homes damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel, central Israel, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Residents watch as smoke rises from a nearby building during an Israeli strike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A woman gathers belongings from her family's home after it was damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel, central Israel, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
People inspect homes damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel central Israel, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Workers inspect damage caused by a drone strike overnight at the Address Creek Harbour hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo)
A woman sits on rubble across from a residential building damaged last Monday during the U.S.-Israeli air campaign in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli authorities inspect homes damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel central Israel, Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Israel Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon speaks during a meeting of the Security Council at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A family enjoys the sunset with the view of the city skyline and Burj Khalifa, at Dubai Creek Harbour in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
Smoke rises after an explosion at the airport in Irbil, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A man inspects a car damaged in an Israeli airstrike at the Ramlet al-Baida public beach in Beirut, Lebanon, early Thursday, March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
