Jannik Sinner | Rising like a phoenix

In September 2022, on a glitzy, starry night in New York, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz met in a high-stakes quarterfinal at the U.S. Open. Though still in his teens, Alcaraz was the more pedigreed, having built up to that stage by winning the Miami Masters and Madrid Masters.

In fact, in the Spanish capital, he had beaten Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic back-to-back, a statement performance. Sinner, on the other hand, was ranked outside the top-10 and had lost all five of his combined matches against Nadal and Djokovic until then.

Over five pulsating sets at Flushing Meadows, Alcaraz beat Sinner, with the tie finishing at 2.50 a.m. local time. The Spaniard, after having edged the five-hour, 15-minute fixture, went all the way to bag his maiden Slam and become the youngest men’s World No. 1. At 19, he was also the first teenager to secure a Major since Nadal at the 2005 French Open.

As fans and commentators were busy heralding of the changing of the guard from the Big Three of Roger Federer, Nadal and Djokovic to the younger lot, and appeared eager to anoint Alcaraz as the new tennis king, lost in the din was the fact that Sinner, in that contest, had a match-point in the fourth set and was up a break up in the fifth.

The Italian may not have gone on to win but he had shown enough to be considered a near-equal.

Almost three years since that titanic tussle, Sinner followed through on the promise by beating Alcaraz in four sets last Sunday for his maiden Wimbledon title. Coming as it did after the heartbreak in the Roland-Garros final a month earlier, where Sinner lost despite having not one but three championship points against Alcaraz, it was the ideal balm for his hurting soul. The accomplishment also snapped a run of five straight reverses against his 22-year-old generational rival.

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“It was important for many, many reasons,” Darren Cahill, Sinner’s coach, said after the triumph. “Carlos had the wood over him for the last five matches. They have played amazing matches, and Jannik had chances in maybe four of the five, but hasn’t been able to get the victory.

“So it was important not just because it was a Grand Slam final, not just because it was Wimbledon, and not just because Carlos had won the last five matches against him. He knew the importance of closing this one out when he had the opportunities,” the Aussie added.

Three-month pause

Turning the tide in their 13-match rivalry aside, Sinner’s success over Alcaraz also comes at an important time in his career. Though the 23-year-old has inarguably been the world’s best player since he won the first of his four Majors at the 2024 Australian Open, the suspension he served earlier this year for having traces of banned anabolic steroid clostebol in his system has threatened to take the sheen off every achievement of his.

In mid-February, Sinner paused for three months after entering into a case-resolution agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for two positive tests in March 2024. Though he was cleared of intentional doping, many players, past and present, thought he had gotten away lightly and that the whole saga reeked of favouritism.

But such was his resilience, that through all this, Sinner conjured one of the best 18-month periods in tennis history. Starting January 2024, he has a stupendous 99-9 win-loss record, has won 10 Tour-level titles, defended the Davis Cup and has been the undisputed World No. 1 for 58 straight weeks from June 10, 2024.

He is now the holder of three of the four Slams and has reached the summit clash at each of the past four Majors. That he remained the world’s best-ranked player through his ban showed the incredibly high levels he had elevated his tennis to. His ATP points tally right now is 12,030, nearly double that of third-ranked Alexander Zverev (6,310).

“(It’s been) very emotional, even if I don’t cry,” Sinner said after Wimbledon when asked to sum up the last few months. “It feels emotional because only me and the people who are close to me know exactly what we have been through on and off the court. It has been everything except easy.

“We’ve tried to push (through) every practice session, even (when) I was struggling at times mentally. Maybe (I struggled) even more in practice sessions because I feel like when I play the match, I can switch off and just play. I believe that this helped me a lot,” the two-time Australian Open champion added.

The victory at the All England Club is also an important marker in Sinner’s growth as an all-round player. He is undoubtedly the best on synthetic surfaces, having won 13 of 20 hard-court events he has entered (including two Davis Cups) since the 2023 Toronto Masters, and finished a worthy finalist in two others.

But his development this season, first on clay and then on grass, threatens the territorial supremacy of Alcaraz, a two-time winner of both the French Open and Wimbledon. It is not that Sinner earlier had negative returns on the sport’s two natural surfaces. He even beat Alcaraz at Wimbledon 2022 in their second-ever career meeting. But proving one’s worth on the grandest of stages counts for more.

“My favourite surface is hard court, but in my mind I also know that I can play well on other surfaces,” Sinner said. “I knew that I could potentially play well here (at Wimbledon) because of my groundstrokes. They’re quite flat, and the ball goes through.

“Clay is different because I felt like the physical shape was not there. But this year, it was great. I played five-and-a-half hours against Carlos (in Paris). It was super physical and different, but a good move forward.”

In a sense, Sinner finds himself in a similar position to Nadal years ago when the latter’s style was seen through the lens of Federer’s ethereal shot-making and thus judged a tad harshly.

Precise strokes

Sinner’s razor-sharp focus, methodical approach and precise strokes do not please the crowd the way Alcaraz’s flair, invention and free-spiritedness do. Sinner plays with controlled aggression and emotions rarely overflow. For Alcaraz, the court is like a playhouse and he feeds off the audience’s energy. Where Sinner can be clinical, Alcaraz teases and toys before shutting the door.

But after the Italian’s trophy-winning fortnight in southwest London — where he also ousted the legendary Djokovic, among the greatest returners the sport has seen, for a fifth consecutive time — the gap in perception is bound to shrink.

“The rivalry, I think, is amazing already,” said Cahill. “And I think it can get better with both these players pushing each other. Jannik watches more Carlos matches than he does (of) anybody else.

“He’s fascinated with the improvements that are coming in his (Alcaraz) game, and he’s pushing us as coaches to make sure that he’s improving as a tennis player as well. So the rivalry is real. It’s there. And hopefully it’s going to be there and real for the next 10 or 12 years.”