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Monday, September 9, 2024
at the top of tennis
Jannik Sinner’s U.S. Open win reaffirms his position at the top of tennis
NEW YORK — In January, at the start of the Grand Slam season, Jannik Sinner became the de facto best player in the world by winning the Australian Open. He reaffirmed that position Sunday in New York, rising out of a “difficult” few months, he said, to win the U.S. Open for the first time. It is the second Grand Slam title of his burgeoning career.
Sinner, the 23-year-old Italian, snuffed out American Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, and with him, the hopes of a crowd buzzing to watch an American man win the U.S. Open for the first time in 21 years. Even Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce showed up.
In the end and from the first point, Sinner made Fritz look close to helpless. On one point he’d crush a forehand that the American would struggle to retrieve.
The next, he’d outlast him in a 20-shot rally, with the patience of a silent monk.
When he had forced Fritz into one last forehand into the middle of the net, he raised his arms and celebrated with all the bombast of an insurance executive who had just wrapped up another successful day at the office.
GO DEEPER
Game, Set, Match: Jannik Sinner beats Taylor Fritz to win U.S. Open
While Novak Djokovic makes tennis history and Carlos Alcaraz lights up the court with his unmatched tennis acrobatics, Sinner takes care of business, more often than not. He does it especially well when he doesn’t have his health or an off-court cloud swirling over his head.
“This last period of my career was really not easy,” Sinner said on the court, just before he picked up the champion’s trophy and a check for $3.6 million.
It was a not very vague reference to his twice testing positive for clostebol, a banned substance, in March, and the ensuing battle to prove his innocence, conducted out of public view. News of those positive tests broke the week before the start of the U.S. Open. So did the ruling of an independent tribunal, convened by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which determined Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” and so would not be banned.
The news turned Sinner into a lightning rod for a series of tennis debates: about preferential treatment for star players, rules that don’t treat all drug tests equally, and whether he should even have been allowed to play the year’s final Grand Slam.
He received a sanction, forfeiting the prize money and rankings points from the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., where the original test took place. He fired his physiotherapist and his trainer, who had purchased the healing spray containing the clostebol that had gotten into his body via transdermal contamination.
Certain players criticized him and the system publicly. Sinner addressed that criticism head-on, expressing relief that the news was out.
GO DEEPER
Jannik Sinner built the team that made him world No. 1. Then he blew it up
“The preparation for this tournament has not been perfect because, you know, of certain circumstances,” he said in a press conference ahead of this first match.
“But whoever knows me very well knows that I would never do something that goes against the rules.”
There was a silver lining, he said. He was going to find out who his true friends were.
Jannik Sinner remained calm throughout the U.S. Open to eventually lift the trophy. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
Then the tournament started. Athletes in turmoil often find peace on their playing field. They can shut out the noise and focus on the next ball, the next game, the next match.
That is exactly what Sinner did, even after looking stale and out-of-sorts as he dropped the first set of his first match against American Mackenzie McDonald. He would drop just one more set on his way to holding the trophy in his hands. Against Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 champion and one of the world’s top hard-court players, he lost one out of the four he needed to win 6-1, despite having break or game point in four of the seven games played.
Off court, he relied on the people who had known him the longest. “They couldn’t make all the trouble go away, but they helped,” he said. He added: “It’s still a little bit in my mind. It’s not that it’s gone, but when I’m on court, I try to focus about the game.”
On Sunday, he came out firing from the start, taking advantage of a day when Fritz’s best shot, his serve, abandoned him. By Fritz’s admission, his groundstrokes also weren’t at the level they had been the past two weeks. Whether that would have even been enough to match Sinner’s is a question that the American never gave himself a chance to answer.
“I’m pretty disappointed in how I played, how I hit certain shots,” Fritz said in a press conference, a little more than an hour after Sinner had taken his big chance at a big result away from him.
“I just would have liked to have played better, and given myself a better chance.”
Even then he seemed to recognize that it might not have made much of a difference, given how many answers Sinner had for whatever Fritz threw at him. They were fairly even on short points, with Sinner winning 60 to Fritz’s 56, but when a point lasted more than four shots, Sinner won 36 and lost 23.
Jannik Sinner exploited Taylor Fritz’s serve vulnerabilities throughout the final. (Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)
As the match wore on and Fritz’s serve picked up, Sinner adjusted. He moved further behind the baseline, switching from attacking the ball to looping it back deep, knowing he only had to extend the rallies to earn the chance to dominate the points. He crushed Fritz’s last hopes of a comeback with a lunging backhand return off a 133 mph laser down the middle.
Sinner’s ball landed deep to Fritz’s backhand, and six shots later, the American was again scrambling hopelessly after a crunched forehand from Sinner’s racket.
He’d thrown his best punch. Sinner had too many better ones.
When it was over, two games later and just two hours and 15 minutes after it began, the ground in tennis had firmed up rather than shifted. There was a gulf between Sinner and Alcaraz, and everyone else before the U.S. Open even started. Djokovic is capable of hanging with them when his body and mind are sound.
That’s about where things stood when it was over. For the first time since 2003, Roger Federer, Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal have failed to win a Grand Slam. A ‘Big Three’ era has given way to a time of two.
It might be this way for a little while.
“It’s good for the sport to have new champions,” Sinner said, the trophy at his side.
(Top photo: Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
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Matthew Futterman is an award-winning veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.”Before coming to The Athletic in 2023, he worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is currently writing a book about tennis, "The Cruelest Game: Agony, Ecstasy and Near Death Experiences on the Pro Tennis Tour," to be published by Doubleday in 2026. Follow Matthew on Twitter @mattfutterman
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Pat Y.
· 14h 33m ago
Credit to Sinner for outlasting Fritz. Both players displayed impeccable sportsmanship and were focused on battling for points. Tired of some of their peers ( we know who they are) who tried to pump up the fans and look for answers from their coach whenever they are in a tight spot. Sinner and Fritz are both great competitors who do not look helpless when things don’t go well. Congratulations to both players!
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Dirk N.
· 12h 45m ago
Very proud of Sinner performance and composure. Forza Sinner!
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Christopher Z.
· 10h 29m ago
Skipping the Olympics paid off big time for Sinner. He looked much fresher than the men who made deep runs in Paris.
We'll see if Djokovic rises from the ashes for one last crack down in Australia but Sinner looks like the man to beat on hardcourts for the foreseeable future.
final analysis: Jannik Sinner
U.S. Open final analysis: Jannik Sinner beats Taylor Fritz to win second Grand Slam title
NEW YORK — Jannik Sinner beat Taylor Fritz in the U.S. Open final at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 on Sunday, in two hours, 15 minutes.
The No. 1 seed prevailed over the No. 12 seed in a comfortable win, bar a few games of excitement in the third set. It was ultimately decided by Fritz struggling to win points behind his serve, Sinner’s tactical adjustment of his return position, and Fritz’s still-developing variety in his game not quite being enough.
It is Sinner’s second Grand Slam title of his career and his second of 2024. He joins Aryna Sabalenka in holding both the Australian and U.S. Open titles for the year, and cements his position as men’s world No. 1.
The Athletic’s writers, Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman, analyze the final and what it means for tennis.
Why did Taylor Fritz’s serving performance dip?
In the very first game of the match, Fritz saved a break point with a forehand winner, after some excellent Sinner defence. It was a short-term win for the American, but having to win points like that behind a serve that regularly clears 120mph is not a path to winning a match. To stand any chance, Fritz would have to serve well enough to nullify Sinner’s defensive prowess.
Fritz couldn’t manage this in the first set, during which time he was broken in three of his five service games, including the first. In that game, he sent down a 127mph serve on break point, which Sinner sliced up in the air. Fritz missed the put-away shot and went behind immediately.
His low first-serve percentage (38 per cent) was a factor in losing the first set 6-3, but even more important was the proportion of points won behind those serves. Fritz won just 55 per cent, way down on the 81 per cent he had averaged for the rest of the tournament.
Fritz was missing the lines with his first serve, and when he got them in, Sinner was able to get the ball back deep and put the American on the back foot. Fritz struggled to bring his forehand into play early in points as a result, and the struggles he had on his serve meant that, despite a pretty good returning day, he was too often behind the eight ball.
GO DEEPER
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Charlie Eccleshare
How did Sinner sweep Fritz’s feet from under him?
Just when it looked like Fritz had gotten his feet under him, straightening out his first-set serving problems and staying even with Sinner through the second, the wheels came off.
The first player to break the other’s serve was likely to win the match, and Fritz had gone from landing just 38 per cent of his first serves in the first set, to nearly 90 per cent in the second set, through his first four service games.
Jannik Sinner dragged Fritz into long rally exchanges that he couldn’t sustain. (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
Then came the fifth and most crucial service game at 4-5, in which Fritz made only three out of five first serves, and the points stretched longer — the kind of situation in which Fritz’s less reliable ground game can break down.
Three unforced errors gave Sinner two set points. He only needed one, moving into the court and sending a forehand deep that Fritz couldn’t get back.
All points and games are supposed to be equal in tennis. They’re not. Lose your serve in the first game of a set and you have several more chances to draw even. Lose it when you’re a set down and 4-5 behind, and you’ve lost at least 40 per cent of a match.
Beating Sinner from ahead or while staying even is hard enough. Climbing out of a two-set hole to do it is nearly impossible.
Matt Futterman
How did the crowd feed off scraps — and then burst into life?
As well as the serve, the main weapon Fritz had on Saturday was the crowd.
Broadly speaking, there are two main ways to get the fans going. One is having a Frances Tiafoe-like ability to work a crowd; the other is keeping the scoreboard close enough that they get properly engaged.
Fritz is never going to be a guy who connects with supporters like Tiafoe, it’s just not in his nature — so he needed to create some tension by putting Sinner under pressure, much like the similarly understated Jessica Pegula did with Aryna Sabalenka in Saturday’s women’s final.
When Taylor Fritz sparked into life, the crowd did too. (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
Fritz really struggled to do this for the most part, for which his opponent also deserves a lot of credit. Sinner has such a good poker face that he gives a crowd very little to work with.
Finally in the third set, Fritz and the crowd started working together in harmony. First, after Fritz held for 3-3 having saved break points, they properly erupted for the first time. Buoyed by this, Fritz gave them a couple of big celebrations in the next game, which sent the crowd wild. They started getting on Sinner’s case, cheering when he missed a serve and willing a double fault into existence to give Fritz the break and what looked like the set.
Then Sinner came back again and, although the crowd remained engaged, they couldn’t help their guy over the line.
Charlie Eccleshare
As Sinner figures out his losses, who will figure out how to beat him?
There simply aren’t many ways to beat Jannik Sinner these days, other than hoping that he is having something off an off-day, especially on his serve. Sinner is now 55-5 in 2024, with a 35-2 record on hard courts, losing to Andrey Rublev in Montreal and Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells.
Alcaraz appeared to be onto something at Indian Wells in March. Down 1-6, he made a mid-match adjustment and started varying the height of his groundstrokes, jumping the ball up and down to break Sinner’s rhythm. The Italian prefers to plant his feet just behind a baseline, firing back forehands and backhands on a wire all afternoon.
Since then, a whole line of players have tried the tactic, and Sinner now sees it from a mile (or 80 feet) away — especially against someone like Fritz, who can’t get the trajectory and revolutions to make things awkward. Sinner straightens up and hops back as soon as he spots some elevation, and turns a high ball into a belt-high forehand.
He has also started making mid-match tactical adjustments of his own. The best example Sunday afternoon was drifting back near the back wall, changing his return position deep into the second set after Fritz had pinned him back for the majority of it.
Jannik Sinner spent most of his time returning in the green behind the court. (Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)
Suddenly, Sinner became Daniil Medvedev. He knew that he could hit long, loopy returns against Fritz — a player who rarely serves and volleys, and is still incorporating variety and advanced net play into his game. By extending the length of rallies, he played Fritz’s service games on terms favorable to him.
It was a good, low-risk place to start changing things up — or in Sinner’s case on Sunday, to finish them.
At 4-5 30-30, Fritz was serving to win the third set and turn Arthur Ashe Stadium into a cauldron. He launched into one of his best serves of the day, a 133mph serve down the T. Sinner’s return position gave him time to send a return onto a pixel square in Fritz’s backhand corner. Somehow, the Italian had gained the upper hand in a point he had no business winning. He did it on that one, and the next one and the next one. Suddenly it was all even at 5-5, and the crowd’s hopes had diminished. Another break two games later, and it was done.
Matt Futterman
What did Jannik Sinner say after the final?
On court:
“The last period of my career was really not easy,” Sinner said, before dedicating the title to his aunt who is unwell.
“I don’t know how much I still have her in my life … She was a very important person in my life.”
What did Taylor Fritz say after the final?
On court:
“I know we’ve been waiting for a champion for a long time. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it done this time, but … I’m gonna keep working, and hopefully I’ll get it done next time.”
In his press conference:
On his serve not working for much of the match
“My plan A is not working. The plan B that I fall back on would normally be being a little bit safer, grinding it out.
That works, along with my serve, against a lot of other players, but against him, he’s just gonna bully me a little bit too much.”
On the feeling that Grand Slams are more open now
“I don’t think you have to, I don’t know, play unbelievable to go deep in tournaments and contend.”
Recommended reading
- Relive the 2024 U.S. Open final, as it happened
- Jannik Sinner built the team that made him world No. 1. Then he blew it up
- Grand Slam quarterfinalist Kathy May told Taylor Fritz to change his game. Her son listened
- What Andy Roddick, the last American man to win the U.S. Open, did next
(Top photo: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
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Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
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Mr T.
· 19h 10m ago
Not a classic, Fritz is nowhere near Sinners level, no one really was in this tournament. Well deserved win from a very likeable champ.
2025 season should be a blast
D
Do.an
· 18h 32m ago
For those who have no idea what a billionth of a gram is and what effects it can have: there is no drug in the world that can have any kind of effect when present in the blood at the dose of a billionth of a gram. None.
P.s. I am a medical doctor.
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Patti S.
· 18h 32m ago
Well done, Jannik. I enjoy watching you battle, adjust your strategy, and be a humble champion. Taylor will grow from this because one could see how bad he wants it. I hope Taylor makes the year end championships. Fresh champion faces are fun!
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