As Jannik Sinner raised his arms aloft in triumph, a grand slam champion for the second time in eight months after defeating Taylor Fritz in straight sets to win the US Open, the irony was inescapable.
On the court, the Italian world No 1 has become a model of consistency, not least on hard courts, where his 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 victory over Fritz, the American 12th seed, means he has now won 35 of his 37 matches this year. The foundations for a breakout season were laid with a maiden grand slam title at the Australian Open in January, since when Sinner has won a tour-leading six titles. It has been a historic campaign for the 23-year-old, who becomes the first Italian man to win the US Open, and the youngest male player in the open era to win on hard courts at Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows in the same calendar year.
Yet for many, Sinner has become an embodiment of inconsistency, given the speed and secrecy with which he was cleared of wrongdoing after a banned substance was detected in his system six months ago. So many players have lost months and even years of their careers in similar circumstances, but here was Sinner, claiming his second grand slam title just 19 days after news broke that he was inadvertently contaminated with clostebol, an anabolic steroid, while receiving massage treatment from Giacomo Naldi, his former physiotherapist.
Granted, on a purely sporting level it is hard not to admire the poise with which Sinner has negotiated his campaign in New York. Since dropping a set against Mackenzie McDonald in the opening round, he has been largely flawless, keeping his head while the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic were losing theirs as he rose above the bonfire of the seeds elsewhere in the draw. Having dispatched Tommy Paul, Daniil Medvedev and his friend Jack Draper in straight sets to reach his first final in New York, Sinner had too much for Fritz on a day when the 26-year-old Californian struggled to find his best tennis until it was too late.
Yet it is easy to forget that Sinner has had a lot more time to come to terms with the situation than the rest of the tennis world. He has been dealing with the fallout for months now; it would be strange if he had not found a way of coping. Darren Cahill, one half of Sinner’s coaching team alongside Simone Vagnozzi, admitted on the eve of the tournament that the episode had taken a significant mental and emotional toll on his charge. What was not clear at that time was whether Sinner would be liberated or distracted by the public revelation of the news. A fortnight on, we have the answer.
“It was and is still a little bit in my mind,” said Sinner. “It’s not that it’s gone, but when I’m on court I try to focus [on] the game, I try to handle the situation in the best possible way.
“Me and my team and the people who are close to me, they know what I’ve been through in the last months. It was not only one week before the tournament, it was months.
“Obviously, it was very difficult for me to enjoy [tennis] in certain moments. How I behaved, or how I walked on the court in certain tournaments before, it was not the same as I used to be. So whoever knows me better, they knew that something was wrong.
“But during this tournament, slowly I really started to feel a little bit more how I am as a person. It doesn’t really matter how or what the result was, this tournament, for sure, helped me a little bit.”
For Fritz, playing his first grand slam final, it could hardly have mattered more. It has been 21 years since an American man last won a major, and from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to Matthew McConaughey, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Bon Jovi, the stars were out in force to support their countryman as he attempted to emulate Andy Roddick’s 2003 triumph at Flushing Meadows. But the tennis that carried Fritz past a pair of multiple grand slam finalists in Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev, and then earned him an emotional semi-final win over US team-mate Frances Tiafoe, proved elusive.
The tone was set in the opening game, where a bungled bounce smash cost the big-serving American an instant break. Already Sinner was setting exacting standards from the back of the court, and although Fritz immediately recovered to get back on serve, it was not long before the Italian’s superior ball-striking told again. At 3-3, Fritz followed a wayward forehand with a double fault to gift his opponent two break points, and Sinner snatched the opportunity, forcing the American off the baseline with a blizzard of punishing groundstrokes before applying the coup de grâce with a drop shot. With his first serve percentage languishing at 38%, Fritz was broken again as Sinner wrapped up the set. The tactical conundrum facing the American was clear.
“He’s the best player in the world right now,” said Fritz. “[When] my plan A is not working, the plan B that I fall back on would normally be just like bringing everything in, being a little bit safer, grinding it out. That works, along with my serve, against a lot of other players.
“But when I try to bring it down, not be as aggressive, then he’s just going to bully me too much. It was tough that my plan A wasn’t really working for me until the third set.”
In short, Fritz was in deep trouble. In the final game of an otherwise service-dominated second set, Sinner raised his level to break with a laser-like backhand down the line. He had made just one unforced error. When Sinner held two break points for a 4-2 lead in the third, the finish line was in sight.
Fritz, however, was not done. Encouraged by his opponent’s failure to punish an inviting second serve, he outlasted Sinner to win a 21-shot rally, then drilled a pair of unanswerable forehands to hold. Suddenly, he was on a roll, pulling Sinner opponent hither and thither with a drop-shot-and-lob routine, nailing an overhead, blasting his way to the net to slot home a volley. Sinner double-faulted to surrender his serve, and in short space Fritz was serving for the set.
Finally, the home crowd had something to shout about. But amid the mayhem that ensued, Sinner remained the coolest head in the house. He broke with a sledgehammer forehand and a teasing drop shot that left Fritz off balance at the net, then powered through his next service game to move within touching distance of the title. In the final game, as Fritz laboured to force a tiebreak, Sinner produced some brilliant defensive play. Unable to find a way past the scrambling Italian, Fritz was hoisted by his own petard, a final despairing forehand dipping into the net.
With Sinner’s victory, men’s tennis enters a new era. This season is the first since 2002 that none of the “big three” of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have won a major. Instead, Sinner and Alcaraz – the champion in Paris and Wimbledon – have carved up the honours between them.
“It is a bit different, for sure,” said Sinner. “It’s something new, but it’s also nice to see new champions, nice to see new rivalries.”