Back in September last year. Jannik Sinner had just been eliminated in the round of 16 of the US Open by Alexander Zverev in five sets.
He has never reached a Grand Slam final. He’s only won one game just below that level, and that’s only in the past few weeks. No one questioned his commitment, but not many predicted his rocket to the top, or what has happened to the 22-year-old Italian with a carrot on his head since.
Fast forward seven months now…
“He’s the best player in the world right now,” said 32-year-old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who now knows that better than anyone.
Dimitrov lost to Sinner 6-3, 6-1 in the Miami Open final on Sunday. It was Sinner’s 23rd victory in 24 starts this season. As a result, he finished second in the new rankings, a huge achievement for him and the latest sign of a tumultuous season.
For years, professional tennis, especially men’s tennis, has felt predictable.
In recent times, everyone has been chasing Djokovic. The way things went last year, he won three Grand Slams and should win another Grand Slam and end the year in first place. There is little sign of that. Shows what changes are coming this year. Things will be different unless Carlos Alcaraz is ready to take over.
(Sayed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)
On the women’s side, Iga Swiatek is basically unbeatable and expected to be for a while.
As for the sport itself, players complain about endless schedules and packed calendars that leave them with little time to rest, but those in the tennis world, the Grand Slams and the leaders of the men’s and women’s tours always raise their hands. Arm says that is how it must be, now or forever.
Three months later, all of that was thrown out the window, or perhaps on a shelf is a better metaphor. After all, there’s still time for Djokovic to be Djokovic again, there’s still time for Swiatek to win with the same consistency that led to her 37-game winning streak not long ago, and all plans to reshape the sport will look like occasional efforts. It also ended in failure. past.
However, at the first turning point of the 2024 tennis season, as the sport moves from the hard courts of Australia, the Middle East and North America that dominate the first quarter of the year to the natural courts of Europe in the spring and early summer, the mystery has Becoming a topic of conversation, especially the past two weeks at the Miami Open.
If your bingo card last September was that Sinner became world dominant and American Danielle Collins, ranked 53rd in the world, won a major title, then for you Talk about fair play. Not many of us do, but that’s where the first quarter of the season is heading — a world of surprises and chaos, where things that seemed unlikely recently become more likely as time goes on.
Djokovic has not won a match all year or even reached the final of the Australian Open, a title he has won ten times and has faced little resistance in recent years. Last week, he fired his long-time coach Goran Ivanisevic, who had helped him win more than a dozen Grand Slams in recent years. Djokovic, who has replaced several other long-serving members of the squad in the past six months, said he did not know when or if a new coach would be named. He may fly alone for a while.
His heir apparent, Alcaraz, showed his former magical self at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, during the first half of the so-called “Sunshine Double” that ended in Miami last weekend. But one player who seemed filled with joy as he climbed to the top of his sport says he has been struggling to find those emotions in training and games for months. real.
Do you think that, at just 25 years old, Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas might be fit and ready to fulfill his promise in 2023? Not so much.
Tsitsipas has long been committed to tennis, always balancing his preparation with some of the chaos outside his former world. He has been in love with women’s tennis star Paula Badosa since the middle of last year. He dropped out of the top 10 in February and is looking to turn things around on his beloved European clay courts.
Swiatek is overwhelmingly superior in some areas and very easy to defeat in others. This season’s list of Swiatek’s killers includes Czech Republic’s Linda Noskova, as well as two Russian players, Anna Kalinskaya and Ekaterina Alexander Ekaterina Alexandrova. Only Alexandrova entered the top 20.
(Robert Prange/Getty Images)
The most likely candidate to dethrone Swiatek is Aryna Sabalenka, who briefly replaced her at world No. 1 last fall but has a record of just 3 since winning the Australian Open. Win 3, lose now, and now face personal tragedy.
Two weeks ago, Miami police found her new boyfriend Konstantin Koltsov, a former hockey player and her partner for most of the past three years, dead. . Days after Koltsov’s death, Sabalenka competed in the Miami Open, losing her second match, but has not spoken publicly beyond a brief statement on social media.
“Constantin’s death is an unimaginable tragedy and although we are no longer together, my heart is broken,” Sabalenka wrote. “Please respect my privacy and that of his family during this difficult time.” . ”
She’s been practicing since the loss, trying to get back to something close to normal, but when the clay court season begins, there’s no telling where she’ll be. Sabalenka, 25, lost her father when she was 19.
(Robert Prange/Getty Images)
As for the game itself, a corporate civil war looms, with the Grand Slams seeking to replace the current 11-month free season with a senior tour consisting only of their own championships and 10 other top events. Calendar, such as the Sunshine Doubles, and the finals of each tournament. Only the top 100 or so are eligible.
The remaining tennis tournaments will be relegated to qualifying rounds. The other men’s and women’s tours, the ATP and WTA, absolutely hate this concept because it takes away much of their relevant territory. Their leaders are trying to strengthen a partnership with Saudi Arabia that would go a long way toward changing a status quo that dozens of players despise, with another game in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The tour allows players to compete in the longest season in the sport for a fraction of the earnings of golfers and other athletes. They gave the leaders of the newly formed association, the Professional Tennis Players Association, the task of burning the boat sooner rather than later. More meetings are likely to be held in Madrid at the end of this month to sort it all out.
Despite all the uncertainty, Sinner has oddly become a constant.
Four games, three championships, one semifinal, and only one loss to eventual champion Alcaraz in Indian Wells. good.
(Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
He felt he had turned a corner late last season when he beat Djokovic twice and led Italy to the Davis Cup final – but he didn’t imagine he would be as clinical as he has been this season. Efficiency wins. It has a quality that, in the best tennis terms, is banana. “I certainly didn’t expect this,” he said.
There is an alluring cruelty to the way sinners beat people now.
At one point, the opponent is defending deep, exchanging serves, back and forth. Then all it takes is a volley, the racket pops up a little too high, or maybe they get lazy on the forehand for a moment, not moving their feet, and then jumps back short without much zip.
Suddenly, this year, that’s all the opportunity Sinner needs to swoop in and never look back.
He sprinted at full speed and knocked the ball down the field. A soft ball that landed a few feet inside the baseline allowed him to take control of the game. The game went from a tie to 15-40 in an instant.
Then he lunged at his feet to block a 130mph serve, leaving whoever was serving it, whether it was the in-form Dimitrov or anyone else, to back off and think they had to pull off a miraculous shot. To maintain balance, they did. Then they do the opposite.
By the end, they had banged their heads against the back wall, just as Dimitrov did late in Sunday’s second set, sealing his fate.
“You see how focused he is now, how determined he is,” Dimitrov said of Sinner. “Could he have played better? I don’t know.”
Darren Cahill, one of Sinner’s coaches, said he absolutely can.
Both he and Sinner say the string of success stems from all the strength and endurance training Sinner has been doing over the past two years with fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara. This allows him to increase the speed of his strokes and serves and hit long points, allowing him to zigzag up and down the court for 20 to 30 shots before allowing his heart rate to return to normal over the next 30 seconds. Stop playing so he can play another one.
Over the past 25 years, Cahill has watched and coached some of the game’s greatest players – Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Djokovic. He didn’t want to start comparing Sinner’s accomplishments to theirs, “but the level is there,” he said Sunday night.
What’s next? It might be a little more confusing.
Unlike many Italians before him, Sinner was not at his best on clay. With a gleaming glass trophy placed in front of him on Sunday night, he was already talking about preparing for his first clay-court tournament in Monte Carlo, Monaco – the southern French principality where he lives.
He said training would begin on Thursday, ahead of his first game a few days later. Maybe now his lungs can handle those long physical rallies and dirt races, maybe not. “Usually, I struggle there,” he said.
Maybe clay will slow him down, leaving an opportunity for Djokovic and Alcaraz to rise again. Nadal, who has barely played for the past year and a half, is also lurking, recovering from hip surgery and a subsequent muscle tear in the same area, and at nearly 38 years old, after a long period of virtual clay court Get ready. Untouchable.
Isn’t this the chaos that has become the order of the day?
Or will this restore the order?
In 2024, nothing is so clear in tennis.
(Above: Frey/TPN/Getty Images)
